Love Isn't Complicated
by sb-essebi
Summary: "Love isn't complicated. What makes things complicated is what we are ready to do in its name and what we are ready to ignore and overlook when we are in love with someone." Post LC. 12 and Clara finally confess their feelings to each other. With their relationship comes an unexpected responsibility and a mystery that will test them like no other. Parents!Whouffaldi fic.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** Yay, new fic! I kept changing the first chapter so I'm posting it or at this rate I never will. Set immediately after the end of Last Christmas. Starts happy. Fluff and some smut, with a mystery. Domestic. Gets angsty in the final chapters. I hope you enjoy the story!

 **Disclaimer:** _Doctor Who_ and its characters belong to the BBC, I just have an overly active imagination.

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Clara let her gaze wander around the console room, as she had done in one of the dreams. Nothing had changed in the months she had spent on Earth, from the orange glowing of the console to the books scattered here and there on the stairs and the writings in Gallifreyan on the blackboards. She could hear the Doctor behind her, dematerializing the TARDIS and sending it in the Time Vortex, the sound of his steps familiar to her ears as though she had never left.

"Where to, Miss Oswald?" he asked, and Clara spun around to meet his eyes.

He was grinning brightly at her, the most genuine and joyful smile she had ever seen on his face, more lines forming near his eyes and a spark lighting up his pupils. She did love his smile. And she saw it so rarely, hadn't seen it in months. She grinned back automatically.

"I don't know. It's Christmas Day, isn't it? I should be making breakfast, opening presents…" she trailed off.

"Actually, it's 4 in the morning. Surely you aren't hungry yet? And you always complain you get the same presents every year anyway."

"Do I?" she teased.

"Books from your father, clothes from your grandmother and a plant you'll let die from Linda…" he enumerated, counting on his fingers.

"Oh, do shut up," she hushed. "I've gotten a special present this year."

"What is it?"

"You, you idiot. You came back."

"Oh."

They kept smiling at each other, and Clara was surprised of how much she could read in his eyes: the happiness, the hope and maybe –just maybe, if she wasn't entirely misreading this- the love. This version of him tended to keep his feelings hidden most of the time, but now he looked so open, more willing than ever to just be himself, to just let her _see_ him.

"We need to talk," she said gently.

"Do we really _need_ to?"

"Not talking didn't take us very far."

"No, it didn't," he admitted.

Clara took a few steps, sitting down on the stairs, the same stairs where they had sat when he had asked her if she thought he was a good man, and the Doctor followed, sitting next to her, turning to look into her eyes as she spoke:

"Thanks for taking me back."

"Why wouldn't I?"

She looked away for a second, her pride fighting the words she had thought over for so long, had dreamed of telling him.

"I've put you through a lot, haven't I? I've had a wobble… or twelve… sorry about that. I want this to be my second chance too."

"I… thank you, Clara," he answered.

Clara remained silent for a while, thinking. She had missed him. Desperately so. Just the thought of him sitting mere inches away from her had her heart beat ten times faster than normal. There was more to that, however. There was a weight she felt in her chest, making her ache with every breath. A weight she needed to lift. She wanted to. She had always wanted to… but the words had always died on her lips. Every time but tonight, when she had subtly confessed her love to him, earlier, in the dream, but even then she hadn't found the guts to dare more than a peck on his cheek, and it didn't seem like he had caught the hint. She should have known.

"This- this could be our second chance," she sputtered, "as, you know, an us."

He frowned. "We _are_ a we, Clara. That's the right pronoun. Aren't you supposed to teach English?"

"I mean, we as a couple." The Doctor blinked a couple of times, putting on his confused eyebrows. " _I mean as a romantic couple, you idiot!_ " she snapped as she punched his shoulder, and quite hard too. He gave her a stunned look as he massaged the spot she had hit. " 'Cause you want it too, right?"

Her hands fidgeted nervously. She felt uneasy exploring what she knew was dangerous territory, _territory that_ _she didn't have control of_. She was never able to decipher his emotions in this incarnation, even though there had been times when, looking back, she could swear he did feel something for her. There had been the jealousy for Danny, the intense glances he reserved for her when he thought she wasn't looking and the things he had done for her -going to hell, risking his life, putting aside his own happiness… they were so similar to what she had done and would do for him.

The Doctor smiled. It was a small smile, a little shy, a little incredulous, but his eyes were shining with delight. "Okay," he said simply.

"Okay?"

"Yes. Okay," he repeated, eyes fixed on hers.

"Just like that? Easy as that?"

"Love isn't complicated, Clara. Nor is it something you can do anything about. It's just there, it won't go away if you hope hard enough."

"We tried that, didn't we?" She laughed nervously, instinctively trying to lower the tension. "Didn't work so well- wait. Wait. You love me?"

"If that makes it easier for you, to phrase it that way, then yes." He paused briefly to chew anxiously at his thumb. "I love you, Clara Oswald. I have loved you for a very long time," he stated, as if it were the most obvious and natural truth in the universe. As though he thought she knew.

"Why, how else would you say it?" she joked, smiling, mouth dry.

He did love her. Her heart missed a couple of beats. Then, her smile faded slowly.

' _Do you think I care for you so little, that betraying me would make a difference?'_

He had said it already. It dawned on her. He had been saying it over and over, and she just hadn't been paying attention. In every gesture, in every word now she could see a pattern, a connection. Everything he had done ever since his regeneration, he had done for her in some way. The sheer adoration that she could now see in his eyes had always been there. Always. But she hadn't seen it. Just like she hadn't seen the Doctor in him at first, for months she hadn't seen the love in his eyes, in his actions. She wanted to cry at her stupidity.

"Oh my God. How long?" Clara asked in a whisper.

"Since I've met you, I think. This you, I mean. The original. But I didn't realize until much later."

"Why didn't you say something?"

He shrugged. "I wasn't sure you felt the same. I wasn't sure of what _I_ felt. Maybe I would have, sooner or later, but then..."

"You died."

"Regenerated," he corrected.

"Whatever."

She had hurt him, she realized, she had made him suffer more than she could ever imagine. He had regenerated. And she had panicked. She had rejected him. She couldn't picture how much that must have hurt. She had pushed him to retreat to safer boundaries, to detach as a way to protect his hearts.

"Why didn't you say anything?" the Doctor questioned, breaking the moment of silence.

Clara hesitated. "I thought you didn't want to… be- _that_ , at first. I thought you didn't do relationships, and I thought I understood why... How could I tell, anyway? You used to hide everything from me! I thought it was clear that you had lost someone… then it all happened so fast, you regenerated and I was so confused and angry with you and I thought I had to get to know you all over... God, I'm so sorry about that. Then Danny came along and I- I don't know, I just think I loved you both, for different reasons, in different ways. Does any of that make sense?"

"I don't think love ever makes sense," he said slowly, "and… and you just said you loved me."

"I do. Love you, that is," she assured hurriedly. "And… it does. We will. I'll make us make sense."

She felt a lump in her throat. She had promised she'd never say those words to anyone ever again after Danny. She had screwed up, screwed up royally. She wouldn't let it happen again.

She brought her hand to the Doctor's cheek and he jumped lightly, his body going rigid and tense as his eyes followed the movement of her arm. Her thumb stroked the line of his cheekbone and he quivered almost imperceptibly. She slowly, very slowly moved her head a little closer to his, sliding her hand a tad lower, reaching behind his neck and pulling him towards her ever-so-gently.

"Clara, what are you doing?" he whispered, a hint of alarm in his voice.

"Kissing you."

"Oh."

The Doctor swallowed audibly and tightly shut his eyes, as though bracing himself, but he puckered up just a little, which made Clara smile.

"So eager," she murmured before closing her eyes too and pressing her lips against his, delicately, briefly, only long enough to feel how soft and cool his lips were, enough to make a warm shiver run down her spine.

She pulled back just a few inches and opened her eyes to see his reaction, licking her lips. His eyes opened and met hers before jumping rapidly, avidly to her mouth just for a moment. She noticed his breath rate was faster, irregular. There was a silent plea for more in his blue irises, one that maybe he didn't dare to voice.

She kissed him again, feeling him inhale sharply right before their lips could touch in what was a firmer and longer kiss than the previous one, confident and deliberate, his lips pressing back against hers towards the end of it, followed by many similar ones, short and relatively chaste but that had little knots of tension form in her lower abdomen anyway.

Clara moved her hand upwards, exploring the back of his head, playing with the shorter hair at the nape of his neck, trailing up to tangle her fingers in the longer curls, thick but incredibly soft, scratching his scalp lightly as she revelled in the tender insistency of his lips on hers. She shivered. God, she had dreamed of this. The Doctor let out the smallest sound under her ministrations and seemed to gain sureness from them, as she felt his cool palms cup her face gently, pulling her closer still, and his kisses grow needier, impatience filling her too all of a sudden.

Her tongue darted out to part his lips and he shuddered lightly as he opened his mouth to her, letting her deepen the kiss. He tasted of coffee and sugar and scotch, a strong and powerfully addicting mix that sent a string of hot waves down her spine and straight to her core. Her hands slid to his shoulders and then to his waist, tugging at his clothes, trying to erase the space between them, their tongues caressing urgently. His hands moved more cautiously but in a similar path, settling on her hips with a gentle but strong grip. He was eager to follow the rhythm she set, returning every bit of her passion with enthusiasm, moaning softly every now and then, when she kissed him just so, trembling when she brought her palms to his thighs.

She pushed him back to adjust his position on the step and moved to straddle his lap, pulling her nightie up to her hips in the process. The Doctor hesitated when his fingertips touched bare flesh, but her hands found his wrists, pressing lightly, encouraging him, giving him the confidence he needed to run his palms experimentally over her upper thighs and the curve of her arse, kissing her harder, making her squirm and long for more. The Doctor's hands were cool on her legs in a curiously pleasant way, caressing delicately but passionately enough to cause goose bumps, steadily tightening the tension between her legs.

Clara dragged him a little more towards her, to feel his chest on hers and his heartbeats wild just underneath, beating against her own heart, and pressed her body harder into his. She gasped first and then smiled in the kiss when she felt a firm bulge in his trousers as his hips jerked up into her, sending a jolt up her spine that had a shiver shake her upper body. He mirrored her shudder, twice more intensely and with a needy groan.

"Doctor." He replied with a sigh, brushing his nose against her temple, a gesture that Clara interpreted as both affectionate and pleading. "Bedroom?" she suggested, placing a kiss on his jawline.

She had wanted to sound nonchalant, but her voice betrayed her blatantly, coming out breathy and low.

"What would you need a bed for?" he asked, confused. " _Oh_ \- for-"

She laughed softly. "If you prefer the floor…"

He shook his head lightly, eyes fixed on hers. Clara got off him and offered him both her hands, helping him to his feet. He smiled down at her then, ecstatic, starting to lead the way as he held her hand gently. His skin was warm now, and she could feel his pulse race under her palm. He didn't speak again in the few minutes it took them to get to his room, but he glanced over his shoulder every few seconds, almost to reassure himself that she was still there, as though her hand in his didn't feel real enough.

She noticed that the Doctor's hands were shaking when he opened the door and let her in, closing the door behind his back as she glanced around briefly. A large bed, dark blue sheets, bookshelves and a desk and an armchair.

The tentative brush of his lips on the back of her neck distracted her from her surroundings with a warm rush of pleasure, and she turned in his arms to face him. His hands settled on her hips with feather-light touch as he kissed her, but he thrust his middle against hers with undeniable need. Their kisses were short, only the tips of their tongues touching, his lower lip caught between her lips, gently pulling and leaning into each other, then his teeth nibbling at just the corner of her mouth, a little dance of seduction filled with hesitation and longing at the same time, her body hot and trembling with anticipation and excitement.

"You know, I don't think I know how to do this," she murmured against his lips.

She wanted him now, desperately needed to feel his skin on hers right this instant, but she also knew he deserved so much more. _She_ deserved more. More than rushed and frantic venting of months of pent up feelings and sexual tension.

"What?"

"This." She let her hand dip to his upper thigh, pressing her palm against his erection and stroking upwards resolutely. He whimpered.

"I think... we should keep kissing."

She laughed softly. "Yeah probably."

He kissed her again and she let the insistent pressure of his lean body against hers push her slowly towards the bed, deepening the kiss, easing his coat down his shoulders with a measured movement.

"And maybe get naked."

"Oh, easy there, Tiger," she teased, smiling in his mouth as the Doctor started to take off his shoes, clumsily, not willing to break the kiss, fingers working hurriedly at his shoelaces, nearly letting himself fall on the bed on top of her when he finally got rid of his socks too.

She pulled him down, in her arms, welcoming him with a slow kiss, parting her thighs to let his body find its place between them, let him press his hips against hers and moan helplessly in her mouth, while she unzipped his hoodie and took it off. They locked eyes for a moment as she played with the holes of his jumper, which seemed to fascinate and confuse him at the same time.

"I like your jumper."

She slipped her fingers in the holes, pulling the Doctor towards her by tugging at the black fabric.

"Are you trying to seduce me now?"

She laughed.

"I think I might casually have done that already."

She tugged his undershirt out of his trousers, making him shiver, and lifted both that and his jumper over his head, pushing him back slightly, leaving to him the task of removing them and throwing them somewhere. She placed her palms on his newly-exposed shoulders, causing him to freeze, his eyes following the movement of her hands. She leisurely explored his torso, caressing his skin, marvelling at how solid and strong his muscles felt, no matter how skinny he was, on his back, his arms and his chest. She lingered there, tracing his collarbones, stopping over his hearts to find them quickened like never before, tormenting his nipples with her thumbs just for a second, making him jump lightly. She smiled. Sensitive, then. She filed the information for future use, sliding her hands downward, his abdominals tensing under her fingertips when she reached the waistband of his trousers.

"We're not compatible, right?" She asked, looking up at him, popping open the button of his trousers. His hands closed around her wrists to stop her.

" 'Course not. Different species."

"I don't risk catching anything from you either, I hope?" she chuckled.

"Clara!" He shot her an indignant look, eyebrows knitted.

"Was joking."

His hands moved to the hem of her nightie, pulling it over her head, and she closed her eyes for a second when the fabric rubbed over her face. When she reopened her eyes, she found the Doctor staring in wide-eyed wonder at her, mouth slightly open, pupils frantically moving up and down, taking her in.

"You're gorgeous," he whispered after looking for long enough to make Clara blush intensely, voice husky and inexplicably more Scottish.

"Not so bad yourself."

"You haven't seen me yet," he argued.

"May I?"

She slid her hands to his zipper and his body trembled, leaning into her touch, but he grabbed her wrists again.

"There's a- thing, I want to do."

She smiled. "Tell me."

His eyes stared into hers for a long moment, as though trying to make her understand what he meant without words. Then, he took both her hands in his and brought them to his temples.

"I want to feel you. In here."

It took her a few seconds to realize what he meant.

"Oh my God. You need that, don't you?" His eyes spoke an assent for him, and she realized he was waiting for her permission. "Yeah. Okay. Go on." She moved his hands to her temples.

"You're sure?"

"Yeah. Okay."

He grinned radiantly at her.

"Oh, Clara, you are going to love this. I'll be gentle, I promise."

"Wait," she hesitated, taking his hands in hers, away from her face. "Is it dangerous? Won't it be like... dropping a piano on my head or something?"

"No. No no no." He brought his hands close to her temples again, but didn't touch her. "Trust me?"

Her expression softened. "Always."

He smiled, pleased with her answer, and his fingertips made contact with her skin again.

At first, nothing happened, but then Clara felt that sensation of void in her belly, like falling, like thinking there's one more step at the end of the stairs when actually there isn't. It was as though the Doctor had just removed a real, physical barrier that had until then surrounded her mind. She felt so incredibly vulnerable all of a sudden, bare in a way that had nothing to do with the lack of clothes, and it was absolutely terrifying. Irrationally, absurdly petrifying. She fell. Fell like a drop in the ocean of his mind, sudden hot and icy currents of his feelings and memories submerging her. She thought she was going to drown.

' _Relax. It's only me,'_ he reassured, the sound of his voice abruptly shaking some of her fear away, and it took her a moment to realize that his voice was in her mind. _'Of course, I understand that's a lot to experience,'_ he added smugly. She could feel what he was feeling, how pleased with himself he was as he formed that thought.

"Oh my God, you're in my head."

His thoughts let her know that no, not exactly. They were connected, in a way, and as long as enough of his nerves were in close proximity with hers, his emotions, thoughts, memories, even his physical sensations could be shared freely between them. But he wasn't _in_ her head. There was no such thing as being _in_ someone else's head. Even though, of course, if you were to cut open someone's skull you could say…

Clara laughed. She didn't know what to say. _She was following his train of thought_. She opened her eyes, needing to look at him all of a sudden, and she almost screamed when, just for an instant, she saw big brown eyes staring back at her. Then, she saw both her eyes and his. It was surreal. She saw her face as _h_ e saw it, so round, so wide. _So beautiful_. He was sharing with her what he was seeing, and the emotions and impressions connected with it. His sight was different from hers, she noted. The colours were richer, the details more numerous, the sense of the third dimension better. It was as though he could see in next-gen HD, and she lived in an old TV-show from the early 90's.

He smiled at the comparison and started to push more strands of her hair behind her ear, making sure to settle his other hand of her hip, keeping the contact. No wonder he needed two hearts, Clara thought idly: the tenderness and love emanating from him in that moment was enough to make her single heart ache. He was in this deep, maybe even deeper than herself, she realized. And to share his mind with her, share himself, let her truly _see_ him, meant more to him than she could ever comprehend. She could only grasp bits and pieces of his twirling memories and feelings on the matter. It was the deepest demonstration of trust for his people. Not necessarily sexual, and not necessarily romantic either. Could be a lover, a best friend, a parent. It was about trusting a person with your life, trusting them to love you even when they could see all of you, good and bad.

"Wait. Is this- is this about making love?" she asked. "As in opposed to 'just sex'?"

He looked up in an almost eye-roll, then uttered the words very softly, very quickly, like it was some sort of personal offence for him to use such an expression. "In a manner of speaking."

She grinned and wrapped her arms around him, pulling him close, marvelling at how sensitive he was, just the contact of skin against skin setting his nerves on fire, and she immediately perceived his reaction at that thought: this body was different, violently oversensitive and particularly weak for her.

"You know what? This is proof," she stated, arms around his neck, fingers toying with his hair.

"Of what?"

"That I was right. Underneath it all, you're into sweet."

He scoffed. "I'm not into anything," he retorted grumpily, but she just laughed.

"I expect you to be into someone rather soon," she purred.

He arched an eyebrow at her, but his lips curved in a mischievous smile as he bent down to kiss her, one hand cupping her face and the other sliding down her thigh, encouraging her to wrap her leg around his waist.

The feel of that kiss was impossible to describe. She could feel his lips warm against hers, and at the same time the heat of her own lips on his, so incredibly soft, and her tongue in his mouth making his head swim. She felt both his muscles tensed at her fingertips and her skin smooth under his touch, just that sensation enough to make small jolts of electricity run down his spine, and simultaneously she knew he could have counted her goose bumps if he wanted. The reassuring, light warmth of his body was softly calling her closer to him. Her scent was driving him crazy, the heat radiating from her body was so inviting and welcoming and he needed more. Clara felt the rough tug of arousal at his abdomen as though it was hers and she gasped against his lips at the suddenly doubled need for him.

" _Doctor_."

His mind tried to soothe her, assuring that yes, it was intense, but she'd get used to it with time, but "I want you" was all he could manage to say out loud before fiercely deepening the kiss, rocking his hips into hers, hard, demandingly, making them both moan. Gods, he wanted her, had wanted her for so long, loved her for so long. Just kissing her, caressing her was everything he had ever dreamed of and more and the perception of her own desire for him was almost too much, it wouldn't let him think straight.

His emotions were a raging storm of lust and love and brutally simple _need_ , and they made her squirm beneath him and her legs tighten around his waist in response as his thoughts entangled with her own arousal, her own feelings. To think about all the time she had needed to know that she would never want anyone but the Doctor- she'd been so distracted. Her hands quickly unzipped his trousers as though they had a mind of their own. She needed to feel his skin on hers. _He_ needed to feel it. His thoughts were so overwhelming she almost couldn't form a coherent thought of her own. His hips jerked forward while she hurriedly worked to tug his trousers down his legs, forcing him to kick and wiggle his way out of them and out of his pants.

He muffled a groan against her neck when she finally wrapped her hand around his cock and started to stoke him lightly. She let out a small sound herself at the maddening friction, wonderfully pleasurable but nowhere near enough for him.

"Clara. Clara, Clara, Clara. _Please_."

She didn't have the heart to deny him anything, not when she could feel his need for more real and physical in her own nerves. She guided him inside her carefully, slowly, moaning softly as he let himself sink in and fill her, thick and hard and _fucking perfect_. He grunted and whimpered against her skin, revelling in the feel of her body surrounding his, wet and snug and so hot that the sensation was everything his impressive brain could focus on.

He started a steady, urgent rhythm, groaning softly and trembling at each thrust, mouth busy at her neck, kissing the line of her jaw, sucking and nibbling in between sharp breaths, making her moan and grab a fistful of his long hair to keep him in place as her other hand travelled down his back and to his arse, demanding more of him, her legs wrapped firmly around his waist. The combined pleasure was overwhelming, every jolt of electricity and every wave of heat shared, doubling the intensity of every movement. It took her breath away and made it impossible to think of anything else but their bodies pressed as close as physically possible and minds blended entirely, to the point that neither of them could tell where one began and the other ended, the Doctor's voice pleading and panting her name echoing in her ears as though from a great distance.

Clara faintly registered that the Doctor was already holding back his release, mentally thanking the control his species had on their bodies, sweat gathering over his pale frame. His hearts were beating furiously against his ribcage and he couldn't remember them ever beating this hard. Clara stopped trying to breathe regularly. Soon she was calling out his name, head thrown back against the pillow, digging her fingernails into his shoulders, his back, anywhere she could reach as their shared pleasure washed down her spine and his, obliterating everything else.

It didn't take long for Clara to near her climax as well, his pleasure added to hers too much to bear, sending flames through her nerves. One of her hands tugged at his hair so roughly he cried out, while the other left small, red half-moons on his lower back. She entirely forgot to breathe, mouth slightly open, eyes shut as her inner muscles clenched hard around the Doctor's cock and ecstasy rippled through her, making her whole body shudder and a throaty moan escape her lips. She pulled the Doctor right along with her, making him come violently and suddenly as soon as the tension at her core broke free, with a shout of her name muffled against the pillow, muscles trembling and hips jerking into her through her orgasm.

For a few long moments afterwards, they moaned weakly and breathed irregularly into each other's ears, bodies hypersensitive, sweat on their skin, stray waves of pleasure swaying from him to her and back at the smallest move they made, until it became too much and he reluctantly pulled out of her.

She kept her arms wrapped around his neck however, holding him there, not willing to let go, still unable to open her eyes, still catching her breath. She felt a hint of regret at the knowledge it had been over too soon, but she could feel nothing but joy from the Doctor, confused blissful thoughts she could barely distinguish.

' _Clara. My Clara. That was so beautiful. Clara. Thank you. I love you. My Clara. It was perfect.'_

She could tell he had been longing for this for centuries. Not for this specifically but for the freedom of loving her. He had forbid himself to even just fantasize or dream about his feelings in this life, convinced as he had been that he would never be reciprocated, and now that he was in her arms the happiness that came with it nearly brought him to tears.

She automatically held him tighter, pressing his chest against hers. She wasn't sure she wanted to let go of him- ever. She liked the rapid raising and falling of his chest and the quick hammering of his hearts refusing to slow down. It was reassuring, in a moment when she almost felt like she was realizing now for the first time that they weren't dreaming and everything they were experiencing now was real.

He inhaled sharply and Clara felt his knees and elbows had turned to jelly and he needed to lie down but didn't want to crash her with his weight. She let him roll to her side even though a part of her selfishly wanted to keep him where he was. She let out a small squeak when he suddenly pulled her to lie on top of him with ease, like she was weightless.

' _You're so small and light.'_

She looked up at him and he smiled.

"I'm _not_ small."

He chuckled and relaxed beneath her, letting his head heavily fall back on the pillow, his left hand starting to caress her back. She interrupted him to move to a more comfortable position, with her head on his shoulder and her right arm and leg draped over his body. He barely shifted her when she started to feel cold and he reached for the blankets without her needing to ask. Being mentally connected had many advantages, she decided.

They lay in silence, sharing the disbelief at how impossible just ever seeing each other again had seemed not 24 hours earlier and the regret for so much time wasted figuring out their feelings or idly dancing around each other. But they were here now, and that was all that mattered. All they could afford to concentrate on. She shook away those thoughts from her mind and his, trying to simply enjoy the feel of his slightly damp skin cooling and the sound of his hearts finally beating steadily again, but while she was rapidly beginning to feel sleepy, lulled by the constant rhythm of his heartbeats, the Doctor's brain was gradually sliding back to relentless work.

"Clara?"

"Yes?"

"Do you feel any pain?"

If their minds hadn't been linked she would have been confused, but she knew exactly what he meant.

"No. No ice cream pain anywhere."

She was able to sense his fear, one of those deep, sometimes irrational ones that you can't shake off even during the best of times. He was afraid to wake up alone, to never see her again, or worse to see her again only when it was already too late, like in one of the dreams. She prompted herself on one elbow to better see his eyes, and gently stroked his face to gain his attention.

"This is real. I'm not going anywhere," she stated decisively, partly reassuring herself as well. "And even if it's not, you'll better wake up and come to me first thing in the morning, or I swear I'll invent time travel myself to come and get you."

He smiled a shy smile, the admiration he held for her determination seeping through their connected minds, and even though her words didn't have the power to erase his anxieties she felt him at least slightly calmer, silently thanking her. She lay down again, placing her hand over his hearts, and to her surprise he started to progressively part his mind from hers.

"What are you doing?"

"We can't sleep like this. You don't want my nightmares."

"You don't want mine," she murmured, and he shot her a look of genuine concern, protectively wrapping his arm around her as their minds separated.

She almost felt less complete without the presence of his consciousness, which was an absurd idea in itself, but it had felt good to have him, comforting. She snuggled closer to him, focusing on the physical closeness and his body against hers. She remembered him mentioning it was early in the morning and felt the weight of a nearly sleepless night heavy on her. She closed her eyes.

They didn't repeat the words. They meant so little, after all. Just the way held her, so gentle as though afraid to break her, but so desperately, like she was the only thing that kept him right in the universe, said more than one thousand words.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** I apologise for not updating for so long. I never got such good feedback on a fic at the first chapter and I thank you all so much for that, but my laptop broke and I lost all the chapters of this fic, and I had to rewrite it. It also has been a very bad period for my mental health, so there's that too. I'm back in the game now, though! I'm almost done with rewriting this fic. You can expect updates once a week, I think.

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The Doctor woke slowly, his first thought being that he hadn't slept this well in a while. Actually, he had avoided sleep ever since his goodbye to Clara, in fear of dreaming of her and being tempted to go straight back to her. He felt well rested, almost drunk in the blissful feel of a long, dream-less sleep. He thought he might just lie there forever.

A good sleep was a rare occurrence for him. His sleep schedule had never been decent, had turned horrible after the Time War and had only got worse after Trenzalore, nightmares adding to nightmares, mixing up and twisting his memories into things even more horrible than those he had experienced.

He shifted slightly to move lying on his side and take the chance to enjoy the warmth of his bed a bit longer. Only then did he became aware of the very light weight over his body, and the memories of the previous night came washing over him as he opened his eyes to a sight that took his breath away.

Clara Oswald was sleeping peacefully half on top of him, pressed against his side, nose buried against the junction of his neck and shoulder, breathing softly against his skin. Her right arm rested on his chest, her hand just over his left heart, which seemed to beat faster in response. She appeared so small, bare and asleep next to him, her serene expression masking the need with which she clung to him, the space between them erased, her hand tense on his chest.

Instinctively, he reached out to tuck a stray strand of her hair behind her ear, committing to memory that single instant of Clara sleeping in his bed, the heat of her body, her scent all around him, on him, the sound of her breath and her heartbeat faint even to his hypersensitive ears, the warm tones of her skin glowing in the light of a late Christmas morning that the TARDIS was so faithfully recreating.

The Doctor revelled in the sensation of what felt like a weight which had been lifted off his chest: for long months he had forbid himself the luxury of even the slightest touch with Clara, to avoid that low-level telepathy he naturally fell into when physical contact was involved. He had seen Clara's fear, seen her want his old self back just after he had regenerated, and he had been too afraid of perceiving only rejection in her mind, only the difficulties she found in dealing with the new him, to allow himself to get close to her.

It hadn't been a smart decision, everything considered. He was a touch telepath. His nervous system, his health, were deeply dependant on touch and the emotions shared through it -just a general hint of what the other person was feeling, on the very surface of their mind, at every touch-. He had already mistreated his body enough with nine centuries of loneliness on Trenzalore, trying to detach himself from the townspeople who he was forced to see come into the world and live only to inevitably die, in the war or of old age, and this body had turned out so very sensitive, both physically and telepathically, making every sensation more intense than anything he had ever experienced in his previous bodies.

Clara's affection when she had kissed his cheek the previous night had hit him like a tidal wave, made him smile like an idiot. He smiled again at the thought, caressing his own cheek where the ghost of her touch somehow still lingered.

Lost in thought, he hardly noticed the fluctuation in the aura of clam she gave off. She moved against him, nuzzling into his neck.

" _Mmh_. Good morning," she murmured, her hand aimlessly caressing his chest.

"Good morning to you."

Clara smiled slowly against his skin. She pulled herself up and on fully on top of him, the weight of her upper body on her forearms, on his chest, regarding him with lazy eyes and a knowing smile that gave into a giggle shortly after.

The Doctor lay absolutely still beneath her as she moved, not knowing what he was supposed to do.

"Not a dream, then," he said, unsure of how to read her expression.

"Not a dream," she assured, her smile growing wider and only more confusing to him.

His first instinct was to reach out to her temple, ready to read what was going on in her head, but he stopped mid-movement. What was that that Clara always told him about personal space and privacy? He hesitated.

"It's fine," Clara said, guiding his palm to the side of her head, seemingly understanding the reason of his uncertainty.

He slipped into her mind with a simplicity that almost scared him. It was too easy to show every bit of himself to Clara Oswald. He was custom-made for her, having regenerated loving her. No one would ever quite match up to her in this life. She would always be the very centre of his being, his everything. It was too easy to love her with every fibre of his hearts, because it was ingrained in him, in this body, like an indelible mark on his skin that branded him as hers, for as long as he would wear this face.

He felt a little apprehension in sharing those thoughts with Clara, imagining that the depth of his affection might seem scary to someone with a life as limited in time as a human's, and knowing that he normally would keep such feelings to himself. Both he and Clara weren't ones to wear their hearts on their sleeves.

' _It's good. This way we can fix our communication issues, want it or not,'_ Clara thought.

However, he sensed that it scared her, the idea of sharing herself so completely, of being unable to hide anything from him or lie in any way. She had easily understood that this was the deepest display of trust for his people, and a vow of absolute honesty. Clara, being human and lacking any telepathic skills, had basically no control over the link and over which thoughts he could see and inspect when they were bound. Even though he could, if he so desired, hide his thoughts from her, she would be aware he was hiding something, and even he could never lie to her without her noticing, when their minds were connected.

The Doctor couldn't help but empathize with her uncertainties, because neither of them liked the idea of being controlled, but he rejoiced in the fact that she didn't mock him for the intensity of his feelings. On the contrary, she felt for him just as deeply. Clara smiled again.

"You're all mine now," she declared, her voice doing that thing, that dropping low that made him shiver and feel all warm inside.

"Was I ever someone else's?"

She considered the option for a moment, distractedly playing with his hair, following the curl of a strand from the scalp to the hair tips, tangling her fingers in it.

"Nope, not really, no."

She caressed the top of his head, flattening his soft curls against his skull and watching them bounce back into place as soon as her hand moved. Her thoughts kindly informed him that this was rapidly becoming one of her favourite pastimes.

"Stop it," he protested weakly, slightly raising his head from the pillow.

"They're springy," she apologized, anything but sorry, and went on tormenting his hair.

It was more pleasant than he was willing to admit, to be touched by Clara in that way, to be the centre of her attention as she studied his features, see her smile as she thought he was handsome and beautiful and _hers_ and she loved the feel of his hair through her fingers.

What he wanted more than anything else in the universe was to make Clara Oswald happy. He sighed in defeat as he let his head fall back on the pillow, an involuntary smile making its way on his face.

"See?" Clara continued, "You're much more fun when you're not scowling like a grumpy old owl."

"I don't _scowl_."

She giggled.

"Yes, you do. Doing it right now."

Clara was quick to supply him with the mental image of his face in that second, looking up at her, his eyebrows knitted together, deep lines between them and on his forehead.

He couldn't understand why exactly she was complaining, when she seemed to think his facial expressions to be funny and borderline adorable. He scowled harder at her at that thought.

' _I'm_ _ **not**_ _adorable.'_

"Are so. Very."

Clara chuckled and proceeded to kiss his brow, which mysteriously melted his frown in a second.

She kissed the bridge of his nose, its tip, and his lips, which chased hers when she pulled back. Clara laughed again. Oh, how he loved the sound of her laughter.

One of his hands cupped her face and he kissed her softly, once, twice, three times, drawn to her like a fly to a fire. Only the previous night had he discovered how much he had been missing the contact of another living being, be it even just a hand to hold. Each kiss was a shiver down his spine, Clara's full lips against his thin ones creating something so perfect he wished it could never end, her hot breath heavenly on his sensitive flesh.

Clara deepened the kiss, keeping it slow, savouring the taste of his breath mingling with hers as her fingers tangled in his hair. He shivered, one of his hands sliding down her bare back, pulling her closer to him as she felt desire tug at her abdomen and he felt it through her, adding passion and intensity to the kiss, making her gasp in his mouth.

' _God, you're good at this.'_

The Doctor grinned against her lips at that, a fizzling warm feeling of pride causing him goose bumps, giving him a new enthusiasm.

Oh, he wanted to be good for Clara Oswald. He wanted to be the best, to never have her think of anyone else, only him. He wanted Clara to feel what _he_ felt, the way he was exclusively hers, forever, no matter what happened, this face was hers, hers, _hers_.

He explored her body with his lips and his tongue. Her hands, a kiss to each knuckle. Her neck, her breasts, her collarbones. He found all the places that made her keen and made her call out his name until he had her lying on her back, legs over his shoulders, hands fisting his hair, and her thoughts were demanding him to lick her, touch her, anything. He was more than willing to obey, making love to her with his mouth and his fingers, and she was pleading him and praising him until the shocks of her orgasm were making his own body shudder, groans escaping his lips, and Clara was moaning his name.

She lay on his bed, panting as she pulled him into another kiss, messy, sloppy, sweat on her temples, gratitude and daze in her mind.

"I don't want anyone else. I want _you_ ," she assured, pressing his forehead against her pulse point, her grip tight in his hair.

Her mind in his and the regular descending climax of her heart slowing down told him without any chance of doubt that she was not lying. For one long moment, he felt at peace.

' _My Clara.'_

"Mmh." Almost an agreement, an acceptance.

She pushed him gently with his back on the mattress: his body responded to hers automatically, opposing no resistance, allowing her to manoeuvre him as she pleased.

She looked so beautiful, straddling him, with her flushed cheeks and parted lips and round breasts with large, still-hard nipples, taking his breath away again. She did that often. Not that he strictly needed to breathe, but it was remarkable nonetheless, how the sight of such a small creature could cause such unbridled marvel in him.

Clara, looking down at him for a long moment, tucking her hair behind her ear when it fell like a curtain to frame her face. Her breath getting caught in her throat, her consciousness forming only one thought as she regarded him, his face, his deep lines and aging skin, his thin muscles, all nerves: _gorgeous_.

' _My Doctor.'_

She showered him with caresses, as though learning his body entirely by touch, memorizing a map of him, of what he liked, learning how to use their mental link to understand and catalogue his reactions, binding their thoughts so deeply his body became an extension of hers. Finally, touching him where his most basic instincts wanted her. Stroking his thighs, tracing the lines of his hipbones. Taking his cock in her hand, in her mouth, teasing his balls, caressing the curve of his arse, making him shudder and whimper and utterly fall apart just with those small, minuscule hands of hers. Every sound he made mysteriously turned into her name, murmured over and over, the nearly unbearable heat of her touch crashing his thoughts, dissolving them into each other, leaving nothing but blazing pleasure.

His need becoming hers, and their bodies joining again. His world collapsing on itself, becoming Clara and nothing else, her small figure moving expertly over his, rocking and rolling her hips, her laughter reverberating through his bones as she watched his eyes screw shut and his face scrunch up in pleasure, the synchronized rhythm of their bodies thrusting into each other speeding up, forcing each other closer as his mind fell into hers and hers in his.

Lights exploding beneath his eyelids. Blinding, thought-vaporizing pleasure. His release triggering hers, catching her off-guard, her muscles clenching hard around him as she came with a shout she tried to suffocate, her hand over her mouth and her eyes wide, so wide, before she could give into a long, shuddering moan.

Her body resting atop his, limp and spent, bliss swinging back and forth between their minds melted together, his fingers distractedly tracing circles on her back. Could have been Gallifreyan, but Clara's mind was so far into his that he found he momentarily couldn't read his own mother tongue. Clara chuckled.

"I don't think I'll ever get used to this. Don't think I want to."

He hummed his agreement, mind adrift.

"Doctor?"

"Mh?"

The Doctor met her gaze, looking down at her, her head on his chest. She seemed to belong there, in his arms, seemed to be made to lie just there like an element of a perfect artistic composition.

"Does this change everything?"

"I don't know. Does it?"

"No- I don't know. I asked first!"

"Nothing has changed, Clara."

What he felt for her, he had felt for centuries now. And nothing in the whole universe could ever change it. It was so human of Clara to think that something as simple as intercourse could shift anything at all in the mind of someone who'd been around for over two thousand years. The fact she reciprocated him, yes, that had turned his little world on its axis, but what he felt for her had been just as huge when he had thought it one-sided.

"But it changes _something_ , doesn't it? We can… snog. Shag."

He smiled.

"Yes, that would be good," he said, maybe a little too eagerly. "If you want," he added quickly.

"Oh, _I_ want. But do you?"

"My race is infinitely more evolutionally advanced than yours, and infinitely more detached from our instincts," he answered. "Which doesn't mean I don't enjoy _intimacy_."

Of course, he didn't _need_ sex the way most humans seemed to do, but that didn't mean he didn't enjoy it, or that Clara's thoughts wouldn't quickly help similar ones resurface in his own mind.

"I'm not _making_ you want anything, am I?"

"I'd like to see you try." He smirked.

"Shut up. Don't be so smug," she issued, grabbing a pillow she threw playfully at him.

"You don't want to start a pillow fight with me, Clara Oswald."

He grinned slyly, holding the pillow as a barrier between them.

"Why, afraid you can't win, old man?"

Her hands closed over his, ready to fight for a hold of the pillow.

He was about to respond with a witty remark, when his stomach growled.

After a moment of silence, Clara started giggling. The Doctor felt himself blush.

"Breakfast?" he suggested.

"Shower first."

He groaned. "It will take ages! I'm hungry _now_."

"We'll shower together, then. Come on."

She quickly got off him and her hand found his, pulling him sitting and out of the bed.

Showering together was an excuse for more kissing, he discovered, and for Clara to torment his hair some more a she insisted to wash him, her small hands massaging his scalp as she distributed shampoo and then conditioner through his curls.

He enjoyed her touch more than he was ready to admit, quick and efficient but still loving and gentle, running the soap bar all over his body. She watched him attentively as she washed him, taking in every detail of his body. Where he had some body hair -sparse, light grey, very thin-, where he had moles -all very small, very light, barely visible-, where his veins showed -his wrists and hands, his temples and his feet-. She appreciated the hard bones and muscles of this body, no softness to it at all.

Her body was the exact opposite. Where he was all sharp angles, Clara was all soft curves and roundness and _Clara-ness_ , fit and strong for a human so small but not hardened by war like he was. The curves of her body melted into one another with perfect harmony, tender skin hiding her every bone, with the exception of her collarbones. He almost forgot about hunger as he got lost in appreciating the feel of her skin hot and wet under his fingertips, the silk of her dark hair that turned almost black under the spray of water.

They dried each other up, hair and all, Clara first, then him. She waited in his bedroom as he brushed his hair, spying out of the door now and then to see what she was up to, and his jaw dropped open as he saw her let her bathrobe fall on the floor and confidently slip on nothing but his black jumper, which fit her like a short dress. For some reason the sight had his hearts stop before restarting with a doubled rhythm.

"Clara?" he stuttered as she contentedly sat on the edge of the bed, gazing at him with an amused, mischievous twinkle in her eyes. "That's my jumper."

"Yep."

"You're wearing it."

"Yep."

"Are you… going to give it back?"

"Nope. Maybe. Later, if you're very good."

She hopped off the bed and covered the distance that separated them in a few swift steps, then stood on her tiptoes to press a kiss to his cheek.

"I'm going to make us breakfast," she decided.

He shot her a worried look, since by now he knew that Clara and cooking made a dangerous combination. Clara seemed to notice his expression, and glared at him.

"Something wrong, Doctor?" she asked, doing that face she did when she didn't want to be contradicted.

"No. Nope, everything's fine," he lied wisely.

"Good. It better be," she stated, pressing her index finger against his chest in a warning.

The Doctor sighed.

~oOo~

" _Bloody_ -"

When the Doctor entered the TARDIS kitchen, wearing only clean trousers and undershirt as he awaited the return of his jumper, he found Clara in the midst of getting fried eggs stuck to the bottom of a frying pan.

"You forgot the butter," the Doctor said gently, sliding behind Clara, pressing his body against her back to watch what she was doing over her shoulder. "Let me."

He closed his hands around hers, his fingers over hers, directing her moves. He binned the half-burnt eggs, abandoned the pan in the sink and selected another one. He cut some butter and let it melt before breaking four new eggs into the pan.

"Like so," he instructed, grabbing Clara's wrist more firmly and showing her a rocking motion, back, forth and slightly up, preventing the eggs from sticking to the pan again.

After a couple of minutes, he disentangled himself from Clara and put the eggs on the plates, one for her and three for himself.

He sat down at the kitchen table and started to add sugar cubes to his coffee.

Clara didn't follow, so he looked up at her.

She was staring at him with an expression on her face he couldn't decipher, and only then he realized how easily and confidently he had slipped in an almost domestic intimacy, how readily he had accepted what Clara had offered, being an "us". It said a lot about how much he had longed for externalizing his feelings for her without fear.

"Clara… If I'm going too fast-"

"No," she interrupted, sitting at the table with him. "It's fine. We're going to be just fine. We've got enough wasting time."

She had that confident, slightly wide-eyed look she had when she was taking a resolution. He nodded.

The Doctor started taking big forkfuls of his eggs and they ate and drank in silence for a while, as he refrained from complaining for the lack of bacon, then Clara suddenly said:

"We should go back at my place. I'll need my stuff."

"All right," he answered, not sure of what she meant.

"No, I'm moving in with you, Doctor! Don't "all right" me."

He grinned in spite of himself.

"Really?"

"Yeah. I thought it was obvious when I said- when you asked me to come back."

"Well, that's fantastic news. I'll have the TARDIS reorder your old room so-"

"Doctor," she stopped him, leaning towards him and placing her hand over his on the table. "We're sleeping together."

"…Oh."

A new grin bloomed spontaneously on his lips. Clara smiled in return.

"Stop being so smug about it!" she exclaimed, but her tone was playful, light, and his smile only grew wider.

"Can't help it."

He took another forkful of his breakfast with renewed enthusiasm.

"I'm still going to teach. And to see my friends and Dad and Gran. But after I'm done you're gonna be there to pick me up, and we'll go on with saving the universe as always, understood?"

"Yes, boss."

"Good. And we're going on dates. And you're going to take me out for dinner. Don't think I'll let you skip that part, mister."

"I always take you out for dinner," he objected.

"Yeah, but it wasn't- not out _out_. We were having dinner together, and we were out, but I wasn't aware that we were _going out_ _for dinner_. So it doesn't count."

"Okay," he agreed without discussing, a small smile curving his lips. Something was plaguing him, though. "Can I, uhm- make a request, ma'am?"

"What? Yeah, of course."

She looked a little upset, and he wondered if he hadn't made her feel self-conscious about her bossy-ness.

"In between the times we meet, I'd like to spend two weeks on my own. Every time."

"What? Why?"

He remained silent, and avoided her gaze, but allowed his mind to meet hers trough their linked hands on the table.

' _I don't want to burn up your time. Our time.'_

He had been working on this thought in the background of his brain ever since he had woken up. Clara only had about sixty years left. He probably had over five hundred just in this body. That was over eight times the years she had left. Ever since he had regenerated he had been spending quite a lot of time alone in between his visits to her.

"If you see me every two weeks, you won't have to see me go," Clara realized. "You'll go first."

He met her eyes, but didn't answer if not in his thoughts.

' _Yes.'_

"Well, you can't do that. You don't get to go first. You're not leaving me alone."

"That, you understand, leaves us at a stall," he said calmly.

She didn't answer immediately, thinking.

"Together," she decided. "Start with two weeks, then adjust the aim as time passes. We're going together."

"That would be… complicated."

"But it's doable?"

"Yes-"

"Good. You do that."

She stared at him, determined.

Settling life and death at the breakfast table. That was his life with Clara Oswald, he guessed. He smiled at the fire in her eyes, perhaps what had made him fall for her in the first place. He could live with that. Live happily with it, too.

"We have a deal, then."

They finished their breakfast in near silence, gazing at each other over the edge of their mugs, fingers entwined over the table, toying shyly with each other's fingers, and after a while her eyes were smiling. Pushing the thought of their inevitable separation far, far in the back of his mind, the Doctor started grinning, and found he couldn't stop.

When Clara moved to get up from her chair, he stopped her, his grip on her hand tightening.

"Clara?"

"Yes?"

He smiled.

"Welcome home."

Clara smiled back.

~oOo~

"Come on, I know you want to ask," Clara said as she gathered some of her clothes in a small red suitcase.

"Your flat. What happened to it? Did it inflate?"

They had got dressed and he had materialized the TARDIS back to where he had picked Clara up the night before, but he was starting to notice now just how big her house was. He seemed to remember her living in a rather small flat. It wasn't like he had been paying too much attention, he hardly paid attention to anything that wasn't Clara when she was around, if they were on Earth. It was mostly boring and uninteresting anyway, or certainly less interesting than Clara.

"This is my Gran's house. We switched."

"You switched houses? Well, now that's just confusing. Why would you do that?"

She closed her suitcase with a heavy sigh and sat heavily on it, hands in her lap.

"My place was small. And here I'm closer to Coal Hill."

She kept her eyes down, fixed on her hands.

The Doctor sat beside her on the bed.

"Reminded you too much of Danny, didn't it."

"And of _you_ , Doctor!" she exclaimed, suddenly standing again, picking up various objects while she paced around the room, steadily avoiding his gaze. "Where you parked the TARDIS. Where you blew up my old phone. That cupboard you kept hitting your head on because it was designed for my height."

"My God, yeah. Good riddance."

Clara finally turned towards him, only to glare at him. Then she went on with her packing.

He rose from the bed and grabbed her wrist delicately.

"Clara."

She looked up at him. "Gran's better off in my flat anyway, this house is too big to clean for an old lady. That's why we switched. She asked me."

"Of course she did." He didn't care if Clara was lying to him or if her grandmother was just as clever as Clara was. "Do you need a hug?"

"Yes, please."

Clara let her things fall on the floor and he pulled her into his embrace without hesitation, wrapping his arms around her, resting his chin over her shoulder. Her face buried into his neck, he let his mind comfort hers with soothing thoughts.

"I missed you. I just wanted you back," she whispered, voice shaking a little.

"I'm back."

"But you were gone. You can't do that." _'I need you.'_

"Clara…"

"Promise me. Promise me you won't leave me alone again."

"I promise," he swore, because he couldn't help but do what she asked, and because he genuinely did not want to leave her.

"No dying. No regenerating."

"Okay."

It was surprising really, how easily he could promise her things that weren't under his control. But he would try his best to stay alive if that made Clara Oswald happy.

"Good."

They parted and Clara started to pick up the stuff she'd let fall.

"Do you have a lot more to pack?"

She looked doubtfully at the two suitcases on the bed, one closed and another one still open.

"Not really, no. The TARDIS can get me anything I need anyway-" She paused when her phone started ringing in her pocket.

She looked up at him as she answered.

"Gran. Hi."

 _*Merry Christmas, sweetheart! Everything okay for today?*_

With his earing, the Doctor could hear the voice of Clara's grandmother quite clearly.

"Uhm… today. Yes! Sure. Christmas. Lunch at my place. Yep. Everything's fine."

Clara bit her lip nervously, looking alternatively at him and around the room. The Doctor frowned.

 _*Are you okay, Clara?*_

"Yep. Never better. I- uhm- I'm a little busy at the moment-"

 _*Are you sure you don't need help cooking?*_

"Nope. Cooking's fine. Know what, we're having turkey!"

"Clara, what are you talking about? I thought we were leaving," the Doctor said, confused.

"Shhh!"

 _*Clara? Are you with someone?*_

"I- Nope! No, no one at all!"

He frowned again at that, crossing his arms. Clara mouthed an 'I'm sorry'.

 _*Is it that Doctor friend of yours?*_

"Uhm…"

 _*Wouldn't you be happier to spend Christmas with your friend, rather than with this old lady, your dad and that horrible woman?*_

Clara smiled at that. "Gran-"

 _*Hush, child. Just tell me one thing: does he make you happy?*_

Clara's smile grew wider. She glanced at him, then at the floor, then back at him.

"Yes. Yes, he does."

 _*Off you go then, I'll take care of lunch. Let's see if we can poison that witch, shall we, hmm?*_

"Gran! I… Thanks. Could you tell Dad?"

 _*Naturally, dear. Enjoy Christmas with your boyfriend!*_

"He's not- thanks, Gran. Don't poison Linda without me."

Clara hung up and smiled somewhat apologetically at him.

"Gran and Dad were supposed to be here for lunch. And Linda too. Sorry, I completely forgot about it," she said as she moved her suitcases from her bed to the inside of the TARDIS.

"Can we go see a planet now?" he asked, leaning on the doorframe, looking into the console room.

Clara grinned.

"I thought you'd never ask."

She grabbed his hand and pulled him in as he grinned back at her.

The doors closed behind the Doctor's back as he followed her to the console, glad to have his co-pilot back, not a care in the world.


	3. Chapter 3

Clara and the Doctor adapted to the new arrangement much more easily than she could ever have expected.

She had thought that the fact they were romantically involved now would be some sort of incredible change, that her whole world would be different because of it. She discovered she had been wrong.

Sure, now she was back travelling with him on the TARDIS, and that made her heart swell with happiness. She had missed their travels and adventures achingly. She spent most of her free time from work in his company too, but nothing had changed between the two of them, just as the Doctor had predicted. She was more openly affectionate with him now when they were alone, and they slept in the same bed every night, usually on the TARDIS, but that hadn't changed the way they interacted with each other at all, or the way they behaved when they were together. The Doctor hadn't really changed either, behaved with her in the exact same way as he had always done, which made her realize how unreserved he had always been in the way he protected her, paid attention to her needs and listened to what she said.

All considered, to Clara this new situation seemed like a sort of natural progression, and a long-awaited one too. It was as though they had been limiting themselves, in a way, or at least Clara had been, in her being careful of maintaining the boundaries of their friendship. Nothing stopped her now from kissing him when she felt the urge to, from holding his hand without a real reason, from asking him to just _stay_. Stay and sleep with her, eat with her, watch a movie. Whatever, like a normal couple. They even went on dates, and went out for dinner, but Clara realized that these trips were no different from their adventure on the Orient Express, their dinners in Europe, or robbing a bank. That was the Doctor's idea of romancing a woman and, to be honest, Clara discovered it was her idea of romance, too.

What surprised Clara the most was that they had found a schedule with relative ease. During the week, the mornings were hers for teaching, the rest of the day was his for wherever and whenever they felt like going. The weekends were no-man's land, but Clara had found she had missed the Doctor enough in the months they had been apart that she didn't want to be deprived of his company for longer than necessary just yet.

After spending the first three weekends with him, though, she was overdue for a bunch of very basic errands which would have bored the Doctor to death had he accompanied her, so she spent most of that Sunday out and about in London.

The air was really cold, but thankfully it wasn't too windy for once and she felt warm enough in her heavy coat, so she was taking her time walking back home. The street wasn't very crowded, so Clara had the chance to enjoy the shop windows and the lights and sounds of the passing traffic. She had learned from the Doctor to appreciate loud, crowded places. At the corner, right in front of a red public phone box, a woman was sitting behind an improvised counter, selling something for charity, though she didn't seem too committed at the moment and didn't stop any of the people who passed by, merely holding out a small box labelled 'Even 1 penny helps'.

Clara started to walk more quickly and looked insistently down anyway to avoid any risk of being stopped.

"Buy a muffin for charity, young lady?" Clara heard as she approached the corner, eyes fixed on the ground before her as she walked.

' _There we go,'_ she thought. These things always made her feel enormously guilty for not giving any money, but certainly she couldn't start giving something to all the people on the streets who asked for something either. "No, thanks."

"Oh, come on. One pound, one muffin. For the kids in Afghanistan."

Clara stopped abruptly on her tracks. For a moment, she was transported elsewhere, months earlier, saying goodbye to Danny Pink in a cemetery, tears in her eyes, breaths coming in sobs, loss like a heavy weight on her chest.

Such a casual mention, just the name of the country where Danny had served as a soldier, yet it could bring back so many bad memories all at once. Momentarily, she felt as though all the air had just been sucked out of her lungs, leaving her breathless.

"What- What did you say?"

Clara finally looked properly at the woman, who had dropped the box on the counter in favour of holding out a muffin. She was covered head to toe in a black veil and was wearing dark shades; Clara thought she might be from the Middle East herself, but she didn't know enough about those cultures to actually be able to tell. Surely her accent seemed of the UK. It reminded Clara a bit of the Doctor's. Scottish.

"I said it's for war orphans in Afghanistan. Come on, what's one pound to you?"

"I- uhm-"

Clara hesitated. She was much more focused on things other than what the woman was saying: the thought had come to her that she hadn't given Danny his five minutes since the morning after the Doctor had returned, nearly one month before. She felt a stinging twinge of guilt at the idea.

"Exactly! Nothing. Don't you want to help those poor children?"

"Of course I do," Clara answered automatically.

She thought of the kid Danny had shot, who had come back to life in Danny's place. Even UNIT hadn't been able to find out what had happened to his parents, and he had been adopted. Probably not many kids were as lucky as he had been, didn't have UNIT at their disposal to find them a loving family to live in.

"Come ooon," the woman sing-songed, holding out the muffin in one hand and her money box in the other. "You know you want iiit. Just. One. Pound."

Clara found herself taking out her wallet, almost without thinking, and putting the money in the box.

"That's a good girl. Go on, go on, have a bite," the woman said, grabbing Clara's wrist with a surprisingly strong grip and placing the muffin in her hand.

Clara hesitated. She had intended to take the muffin just to make the lady happy, then bin it at the first chance. She didn't usually take street food at all, she thought it wasn't very hygienic, but it was almost dinner time and she wouldn't mind a little snack on the way home. Besides, she liked chocolate and pastries or cakes and these kind of things, they reminded her of her mother, who was always baking something.

She decided to content the charity lady and took a bite as the woman watched attentively.

It tasted horrible, and not at all of chocolate, but she couldn't spit it out right in front of the woman, so she very reluctantly forced herself to swallow. She faked an appreciative noise.

"It's great!" she lied.

"It is, isn't it? Made them myself," said the woman proudly. "Have a nice day, Clara!"

Clara had already started to walk away, turning the corner to unceremoniously spit in a handkerchief and rub her tongue on it, trying to brush away the disgusting taste. She threw the rest of the muffin in the nearest bin and walked home, thinking about Danny.

After only a few steps of being lost in those sad thoughts, she found herself distracted by how hot it was getting.

She looked up at the sky to see if the sun had come out, but it hadn't. Odd.

The heat became unbearable in a matter of minutes, and she took off her coat, carrying it instead of wearing it.

Her arm started sweating under the heavy fabric of the coat and she unbuttoned a couple of the top buttons of her shirt, looking around. Strangely, no one else seemed to share her discomfort for a temperature that was frankly unbelievable in late January. Funnily enough, the heat almost seemed to be coming from within her. She wondered if she might be getting the flu, or something like that.

Clara arrived home thinking almost exclusively about turning on the air-conditioning as soon as she got inside. She opened the door, hanged her coat neatly on one of the hangers, and was starting to take off her shoes when she heard the familiar sound of the TARDIS landing.

She wiped the sweat off her forehead as she watched the time machine materialize in the middle of her living room, and the Doctor lean out of the door shortly after. He beamed at her.

"Hello, Clara. Done with your errands?" He frowned. "Why are you all wet? Have you been swimming?"

"Hi. No, I'm not wet, I'm just a little sweated. Could you sonic the air-con on please?"

"You're hot? I mean, you _are_." He smiled, thinking himself really clever and really funny and really charming.

"Do as you're told," she said, smiling, greeting him with a hug he returned. "Wow. New aftershave?" she asked, noticing just how different his scent was, strong and pungent, much different from the usual. She liked it a lot, in reality.

"No, same as always." He looked puzzled as he broke the embrace and dipped his hand in his pocket, taking out the sonic screwdriver and turning on the air-conditioning like she had asked. Then he leaned in towards her again, inhaling deeply. "You're the one who smells funny."

He actively sniffed a couple of times at her neck, her hair, and she smacked his head away, blushing.

"Okay, that's just creepy. I've sweated a lot, I just need a shower."

Clara exhaled decisively, rubbing her palms on her jeans to dry them. Her cheeks felt burning hot. The Doctor did smell really good. It seemed like such an important piece of information to her brain. For some reason she found it, well, a bit arousing. A big bit. Okay, maybe she was really getting ill.

"No, I mean, _good_ funny. It's strange."

The Doctor looked funny, too. His pupils were dilated and his cheeks were slightly flushed.

"Alright? Thank you, I guess?"

Right, maybe they were both getting sick. Space flu or something like that.

"Are you ready to leave? For dinner?" he asked.

"I don't know, I think I still want to shower first."

She had the feel that there was something not right going on, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it. Her head didn't feel right either. She couldn't focus. Or rather, she couldn't focus on anything but the Doctor. How good he smelled, how attractive he looked in this precise lighting, in this precise moment.

"Clara, are you alright? You look worried."

"I don't know, it's- it's been a weird day."

"Really? You said it would be boring!"

The Doctor looked a little offended because she hadn't brought him along, since weird equalled interesting for him most of the times. His face and neck were reddened just so, and that wasn't something Clara associated with his 'offended' face. He only blushed when… when they were intimate. Kissing. Making love. Clara thought it was one of the hottest things ever, usually, the fact that it was so plain on his face what he needed and wanted, and today was no different, a warm shiver running down her spine. She impulsively pulled him by the lapels of his coat and kissed him passionately for good measure.

She felt his mind enter hers cautiously as she deepened the kiss. He knew she allowed him to do so as he pleased, even though she was still getting used to it. His thoughts mingled with hers, broadcasting pleased surprise and unusual need, sparks of pleasure down his spine as they tongues touched.

"You're wearing a new perfume," he gasped when they parted.

"Nope, same as always." She kissed him again, because she wanted to, because it felt good and because his pupils were blown wide as he stared at her lips. "You really smell good."

"So do you."

The Doctor initiated the kiss this time, something he didn't do often, and Clara responded in kind, finding it harder and harder to focus the longer they kissed, her hands roaming to his hair and his back, his arms wrapping around her and pulling her closer firmly, more possessively than he had ever done. She could feel his pleasure as they kissed, could feel him harden all too easily, their bodies pressed close.

"Sofa?"

"Yes, please."

She tugged her shirt and undershirt over her head in a fluid move, something she had practically wanted to do the second she had stepped inside her house, then stepped backwards rapidly, dragging the Doctor with her by tugging at the lapels of his coat. The backs of her thighs hit the armrest of the sofa and she let herself fall back on it, pulling the Doctor on top of her and between her spread legs.

They kissed sloppily, messily, as he hurriedly got rid of his coat and ground his hips hard down into hers.

Clara was thinking about so little except that she wanted, _needed_ him, as she unhooked her bra and unzipped both their trousers while trying to snog the Doctor senseless, his hands seemingly everywhere all at once, at her cheeks, on her breasts, down her panties. She moaned loudly as he slipped two fingers inside her, and he groaned, feeling her frustration, her need, finding her soaking wet.

It was as though he suddenly had a physical, chemical effect on her, or maybe she had it on him. Or both. It didn't seem important now that their bodies were so close, her hand dipping inside his underwear and finding him so perfectly hard and unusually warm. She guided him inside her quickly, thinking solely about how badly she needed to come and make him come as soon as possible.

Clara wrapped her legs tight around his waist, her back arching up to meet his thrusts. She begged him for harder, and faster, with words and with thoughts. Her body was set aflame with pleasure in a matter of minutes, her mind completely into the Doctor's and vice versa to the point that she couldn't tell which one of them was close to screaming with ecstasy. Probably both.

Her nails dug into his still-clothed shoulders as she came, her body stilling before shuddering violently and clenching hard around him, and he followed her immediately as she gasped his name, his forehead pressed hard against her sternum, groaning into her skin.

Only as she came down from her high did Clara start to really realize what had just happened, and how quickly. She felt her cheeks heat up yet again with self-consciousness, but at the same time she revelled in that feel of post-coital bliss both she and the Doctor were drifting into, and she felt happy. If there was something worrying her before, it was well forgotten now.

She looked down at the Doctor, and their eyes met. Clara laughed softly at the sight of him panting still, pupils blown, his head resting between her breasts, looking absolutely at peace and oddly exactly where he should be.

" _God_ ," she sighed, and quite contently too. "What the hell was that?"

"The best hour of your life?"

"Hour?" She giggled. "It was five minutes. Seven, at most. I've never… I don't think I've ever come so fast in my life." The Doctor grinned up at her and she couldn't help grinning back. She paused for a moment, then asked, frowning: "Seriously, though. What's got into us?"

"The magic of new relationships?"

Clara laughed again and let her head fall back on the sofa, distractedly playing with the Doctor's hair.

"Are you okay, Clara?"

"Yeah, yeah. I just think it's weird."

"Weird? Why weird? It's just sex, Clara. Nothing happens when you have sex."

Clara replied with a non-committal noise, not convinced.

~oOo~

Clara should have found out sooner, really. The only reason she didn't was that she was so certain it was impossible.

She felt sick, later that week.

She had cramps and even bled a little, so she thought she was getting her period early. Pretty early, over a week early. But it only lasted a couple of days.

She spent the weekend in bed, feeling queasy and nauseous and endlessly bothered by a very bored -and very unwilling to keep her company in bed full-time- Doctor.

She went back to teaching on Monday even though she kept feeling a fluctuating but always present level of sickness, and a bunch of other symptoms that she didn't associate at all with the common stomach-flu, like the fact her breasts felt achy and it was distracting and _bloody unbearable_. Admittedly she was -maybe, slightly, _just a wee bit_ \- irritable.

That's when, fairly annoyed by the whole thing, she googled the symptoms. Which kept pointing at only one possible explanation. She dismissed it, and went on with her life as usual. Stupid Google.

Her period didn't come the day it was supposed to. But she didn't worry. Nope. Not at all. Clara Oswald, king of okay here, not worried at all. She waited.

For one day.

For three.

For five.

The seventh day, a Sunday night, she was lying in her bed, alone. The Doctor had left after watching a movie with her, because she still felt sick and was most definitely not in the mood, and because she couldn't bear him even just sleeping in the same bed because the smell of his shampoo made her want to throw up. She used to love that shampoo.

She got up, threw her pillow to the wall, pulled on the first thing she found, and even if it was 11:12 in the night and she felt exhausted -even if she hadn't done much all day- she went out to search for a pharmacy open 24 hours and bought a pregnancy test.

She almost didn't need to look at it to know it was positive.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N:** This was my favourite chapter to write so I hope you'll enjoy it too!

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Clara wasn't even sure of how she felt as she barged into the TARDIS and shoved a pregnancy test in the Doctor's hand.

"Explain," she said simply, mouth dry.

"Is this-"

"Yes."

"For-"

"Yes. It's positive." She stood in front of him with her arms crossed, staring up at him, his face frowned, turning the test in his hands. "Explain."

"Well, I think _you_ should be the one doing the explaining."

" _I_ should explain? _You_ said we weren't compatible!"

He blinked repeatedly in confusion.

"I'm sorry, how does that have to do with anything?"

"Doctor, _I'm pregnant_."

"And how is that _my_ fault?"

" _Because it's yours!_ " she exclaimed.

"Don't be absurd, Clara. It can't be mine."

He moved a few steps towards the console, facing away from her.

Clara would never have expected that reaction from the Doctor. It was far worse than any of those she had thought of. She took a step towards him.

"Who else's?"

"I don't know. Danny's?" he asked, returning his eyes to hers as he ran one hand through his hair, nervous.

" _What are you talking about_?" she shouted."Danny died over six months ago!"

"Oh. Right. …really? That long?"

Clara glared at him in reply. She couldn't believe how fleeting most things appeared to him, how even the passing of time wasn't something he took notice of, if it didn't affect her or him very, very directly.

"It's yours, Doctor," she repeated after taking a deep breath, trying to calm herself down.

"Clara, it can't be mine," he replied, still remaining exceptionally, inexplicably calm. "It's okay, I understand. Danny was dead, you were alone. I get it, really-"

"I haven't been with anyone else since Danny! There's only _you_ , Doctor!"

"Maybe you've forgotten about it. _I mean_ , compared to me-"

"Don't brag! Seriously? Right now? Does it look like it's a good moment to do that?"

"Well-"

"No, stop. Shut up. Don't answer." She sighed in exasperation. How utterly idiotic could he be, to think she might have wanted someone else after Danny? After him? After she had explicitly _told_ him that he was the one she wanted. She had been a mess after both the Doctor and Danny had gone away from her, she had felt empty and even questioned who she really was without the Doctor in her life, but she had never wanted to replace either of them. She had only wished she could have them back. "I haven't forgotten _anything_. This baby. It's yours, Doctor. Ours."

The Doctor sighed in turn and closed the distance between them to touch her shoulder gently, sympathy in his eyes. Clara hated that expression the second she saw it.

"Clara… I know you want this to be real… but it's impossible. Our genetic structure is only superficially similar, I have more chromosomes than you have and the ones you do have only partially match mine. I guess the test was just wrong. They're really imprecise little thingies-"

"I took five," she interrupted him sharply.

The Doctor's mouth opened, then closed.

"I'll just run a scan, so you'll be convinced, okay?"

"Run the scan, Doctor," she half-challenged. He could be insufferable when he played the all-knowing, patronizing Lord of Time.

He moved to the control panel.

"Still sure you're pregnant?"

"Yep."

"You still think it's mine, don't you."

"Yep."

They locked eyes for a long moment. Then, he nodded slowly, a grave expression on his face, and pushed a couple of buttons on the control panel. The monitor emitted a short beeping noise and information appeared on the screen, next to a silhouette of her body.

 **Subject:** Oswald, Clara

 **Species:** Homo Sapiens

 **Status:** no relevant infections detected

Clara sucked in a breath as the monitor beeped again and new lines of text appeared below:

 **Subject:** embryo, unnamed

 **Species:** Gallifreyan

 **Status:** no relevant infections detected

Clara stared in silence at the little word next to "species" in her baby's information: Gallifreyan. Her baby. And the Doctor's. Unmistakably the Doctor's.

When she turned her attention to the Doctor to watch his reaction, she found he was gaping at the screen, completely immobile.

"Clara," he said, not looking at her.

"Doctor?"

"You're… You're pregnant," he murmured, as if he were hearing about anything of the sort for the first time in his life, as if she hadn't been talking about it for the past minutes.

"Told you so," she said with an annoyed eye-roll.

"Clara. I'm… I'm the father."

He looked at her with utter bewilderment in his eyes, shaking his head slightly.

"Yep."

" _Clara_ ," he repeated, voice shaking, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "We're going to be _parents_."

"Is that… okay for you?" she asked hesitantly, asking the only question that really mattered to her, the one she would have asked sooner if the Doctor hadn't been busy being a massive idiot.

"Okay?" He scoffed. "Of course it's not _okay_ , Clara! It's more than okay. It's-" He stopped, raising his arms halfway only to let them fall to his sides.

"You're happy, then? That I- that we…" She made a vague gesture with her hands.

"Of course I'm happy, Clara. Why wouldn't I be happy?"

He looked distressed rather than anything else, voice thick with emotion, but Clara decided she'd take his word on that one. She shook her head, feeling a little overwhelmed, and rapidly crossed the distance between them to throw her arms around his neck. The Doctor went rigid at the contact, keeping his arms strictly to his sides.

"Hug me, old man."

"Yes, ma'am."

Reassured of what she wanted him to do, he wrapped his arms around her, caressing her back delicately, pulling her into him, in the warmth of his heavy clothes and in the reassuring scent of him.

"I don't know," she said eventually. "I was scared. _You_ look scared." She looked up at him. He was smiling warmly now, promisingly. "But it's good, isn't it? A baby. It's a good thing. Someone like you- what's wrong?" she asked, seeing his smile fade all of a sudden.

"You said it. Someone like _me_. The scan, it says 'Gallifreyan'. That's not possible."

"I'm sensing an inevitable 'but' in there somewhere."

The Doctor looked away and gradually loosened his embrace, his arm lingering as it slid around her back. He moved back in front of the control panel, pushing a series of buttons she did not recognise, the text on the screen turning into Gallifreyan, only for him to read. He studied the results in silence, frowning, eyes of the lightest blue, his lips pursed in a thin line.

"Doctor. Talk to me."

Clara moved to press her body against his back, caressing his shoulders and upper arms, his muscles tense under her touch.

His eyes remained fixed on the screen.

"Someone did this to you. It wasn't supposed to happen."

"I'm sorry, what?"

He sighed heavily.

"Someone made sure you and I could conceive a child." He turned to look at her, and Clara felt almost transfixed by that gaze. She knew that look. Forward, plain in his pupils was the concern for her, but deeper, glowering, she saw raw anger. "I need to know how this happened, Clara. I need you to remember. Did _anything_ happen, anything at all? Anything strange, anything out of the ordinary? Did you accept anything to drink or, or to eat from a stranger? Anything? Could anyone, on any occasion, be able to inject you something without you noticing? Any blanks in your memory, times you woke up and didn't remember going to sleep? Anything at all?" he urged her on, turning fully in her loose embrace, breaking it.

"No, no, no. Nothing I can think of…" His pressing questions made it difficult to focus on remembering. "But- wait. Why? What does that have to do with…" She gestured vaguely at herself. For some reason, she found it so difficult to just say it. It always seemed to be that way with the important things of her life.

"Someone did this to you. Someone manipulated your genetic material with _chirurgical precision_ to match mine."

"You mean-"

However welcome the result might be, the idea of someone meddling with her body disgusted her, and she felt a flash of anger at the thought.

The Doctor started to pace around the console, walking in fast, long strides.

"I _mean_ that you came in contact, possibly ingested, I don't know, came in contact with nanobots or something similar, designed for the sole purpose of meddling with the chromosomes of the egg cell that was maturing inside you at the moment to match the ones of a Gallifreyan male, adding the missing ones and adapting the others."

She shook her head. "That's absurd, why would anyone do that? And how? How would they know that we… that we're together?"

" _I don't know!_ I hate not knowing. Oh, and _of course_ they know: you're being spied."

" _What?_ How do you know?"

"It's the only logical explanation."

"Why not the TARDIS?"

"The TARDIS is unspyable. _I_ would notice if someone were spying on me."

"And you think _I_ wouldn't? And that's not a word, by the way. Unspyable."

"It is. I just made it up." He paused, marching nervously back and forth, ruffling his own hair with both hands. "Whoever did this has a technology so advanced that they could be walking right behind you and you wouldn't notice."

He stopped his pacing and stood _right behind her_ for a moment, and Clara turned to glance apprehensively at him, suddenly uncomfortable with that idea.

"Then what do we do?"

The Doctor climbed up the stairs to the second level of the console room.

"Nothing. We can't do anything, because we don't _know_ anything." Clara watched him stare for a long moment into the mirror between two of the bookshelves, studying his reflection. Then he turned around to lean on the railing, looking down at her. " _Why_ do I feel like I'm missing the obvious?"

He quickly retraced his steps and returned to her side, clearly awaiting an answer.

"I don't know. 'Cause you _are_ missing it?" She met his eyes, and their expression was sad, almost defeated. He started to torment the tip of his thumb with his teeth. She pressed her hand on his cheek and he stopped, leaning into her touch. "Hey."

"Clara."

"I'm right here."

"Do you want this baby?"

"Why are you asking?" she asked, sensing a second motive.

"Because whoever did this to you didn't have good intentions. They didn't do it to do us a favour, or in our best interest. _If_ you decide you want this baby, I think it's going to be dangerous. _You_ will be in danger, _our baby_ will be in danger, and I-"

"And _you_ won't let anyone hurt me," she interrupted, "or… or our baby. Not _anyone_. Not _ever_."

He didn't reply, but he blinked slowly and she saw adamant determination in his eyes as he reopened them, and she knew she was right.

She had barely given it thought until now, too caught up with being anxious about telling the Doctor, but Clara discovered she wanted this baby.

She had always wanted children -God, she _loved_ kids- even though she hadn't truly pictured having one in a long time. She remembered fantasizing about marrying and adopting kids with Nina back in the day, back when she was little more than a teenager, back before Nina revealed herself for the horrible person she was. There had been a long series of unimportant stories after that, and of one-night stands. Before the Doctor came along. Before Danny. She'd never talked about having kids with Danny, somehow had never imagined it either. There had been so many things in her life at the time between the Doctor, Danny and her job that she had been… busy. Happy. She hadn't felt the _need_ to have kids. Besides, she was still quite young anyway. Plenty of time to think about kids later.

Now, though, everything was different. This baby was a reality -as difficult as wrapping her head around it was- and it seemed… right. It was there, growing invisibly inside her, and she saw no reason why she should object to that. The Doctor and Clara, raising a child together. Yes, she could see that happen. And if there was someone out there who wanted to hurt them, then all the more reason to let this baby come into the world, and grow, and age. Let it be a raised middle finger to those who wanted to try and hurt them. Because their baby would be protected, Clara knew that much. The Doctor would never let anyone hurt the people he loved and, frankly, neither would Clara.

"I want this baby, Doctor."

He nodded solemnly.

"As I feared."

"What are you afraid of?"

He exhaled a shuddering breath, eyes closed, and leaned forward to touch his forehead to hers. She did not feel the gentle touch of his mind on hers that she had grown familiar with, but this didn't surprise her: she had soon learned that he was reluctant to share his thoughts when he deemed them too tumultuous and overwhelming for her, and she suspected this was the case. She could see it in his eyes, in his body language.

"I'm scared of what could happen to our baby. Of what I'd do if… if…"

He gave up and she gradually felt his thoughts stream into hers. He was scared of what he would do if something were to happen to their baby, to her, if someone were to threaten them… the things he'd do to protect them, to save them, to avenge them… He was afraid of losing himself, of forgetting what being the Doctor meant in the effort to protect what he cherished most.

"That's not gonna happen," she reassured him firmly. "I'd die before-"

"Even worse," he interrupted. "I can't lose you, Clara."

She couldn't see his eyes, but she knew, through him, that they were bright, and his throat felt dry.

"Doctor. Do _you_ want this baby?"

"I do, I do, but-"

His voice broke and he shook his head slightly, yet not breaking contact with her.

"No buts. I want this baby, Doctor, but I… I need you. I need you to stay. If we're doing this, then there's no leaving. You do not leave me. You do not leave _us_ , okay?"

"I won't, I'd never… I'd never leave my child, I… I've never wanted to leave…"

That instant, when he used the past tense, she knew he was thinking of another time, another place, something she had only seen glimpses of. She cupped his face with her palms and forced him to look at her.

' _Doctor. What happened to your children?'_

There was infinite sadness in his eyes as he let Clara look, let her read him like an open book.

And Clara saw. She saw him love his children dearly, fiercely, even though they were so different from him, so far from his ideals, even though he saw them so rarely after he had left Gallifrey the first time, and Clara saw him lose them. She saw him lose them when he was so accustomed to violence, so hardened by war, a soldier in his body and his soul, that he had no tears to mourn them. She saw fire and heard screams, saw a golden city burn down in flames and a man she had met once clutching a lifeless body in his arms.

Clara abruptly let go of the Doctor, and the images faded. The imprint of the light of the fire on her eyelids remained, though, the screams kept ringing in her ears, the stabbing, emptying pain at her chest lingered on, taking her breath away.

"There's a reason why I don't show you," the Doctor murmured.

"I can take it. It wasn't so bad," she lied, her voice still shaking with the raw emotion of what she had experienced.

"Oh, Clara. That was only a fraction."

He smiled bitterly, and wiped away tears on her face she hadn't realized were there.

"Are you sure you-"

After what had happened to his children, it was only fair if he didn't want to…

"Yes. I want to raise this baby with you. If you want it. If you want me."

"You _know_ I do," she said almost angrily, looking at his face that seemed so determined now, it seemed unbelievable for a man who had to feel, to see _all that_ his every waking hour.

He cupped her face with his right hand and stroked her cheek lightly with his thumb.

"What you saw was over one thousand years ago," he said, sensing her concern.

"I know, but it felt so-"

"So real, I know. It does."

"…Do you ever… miss them?" she asked after a while.

"Not at all. They're in here," he affirmed, tapping two fingers against his temple, "for me to remember whenever I want. _Only_ when I want. That's the trick."

"It's not the same thing."

"It's not. But it's…"

"It's something," she completed for him, understanding suddenly.

She too kept the memories of the people she had loved locked away for when she was ready to think about them. Her mum, Danny… and those memories could be comforting, at the right time. In that moment, Clara thought her mother would have been happy to see her daughter have a child. The idea made Clara smile.

The Doctor rested his chin on top of her head, returning the embrace, enjoying the contact and returning his mind to hers soothing her with new, warmer thoughts of affection.

"Will it be different? From a human pregnancy? A human baby?"

She looked up at him. He appeared pensive for a time before answering.

"Not radically different, no. I'll have to give you something to prevent your body from rejecting the baby, though I guess if it hasn't happened until now it's because our _mysterious friend_ has already taken care of that. It's supposed to be longer too, about forty-eight weeks. I won't feel safe until you are at least forty weeks in, otherwise…"

"Okay, stop right there. Not gonna think about that, okay?" She paused, considering. "Look, I know you're afraid. Of what could happen to this baby. I am, too. But… don't you dare detach yourself from it, Doctor. Don't- don't do that to me. To yourself. We only do this if- if… if you let yourself _love_ this baby. You owe it that much. Promise me, Doctor."

He looked gravely into her eyes for a few seconds before answering.

"I promise," he swore, his voice barely a whisper, but Clara saw the resolution in his eyes, the truth of his determination.

He distanced himself from her gradually, slowly breaking their embrace. Then he fell to his knees and brought his face on level with her belly, his large hands settling on her hips. He looked up at her.

"I'm going to do anything that's in my power to protect you. And anything that's not in it."

She smiled, even though he was serious. "I know."

"Good." He turned his gaze to her stomach. His thumbs stroked the waistband of her jeans, just barely touching her skin in the process. Clara shivered at the sensation, then winced slightly when it came accompanied with a fit of nausea. "How are you doing?"

"It's alright, I guess. Minus the sickness. I feel sick all the time."

"I noticed. I just didn't connect the dots."

"Not just in the morning. Is that normal?"

"That's a myth, I'm afraid. It's completely normal, Clara."

He pressed his forehead against her stomach and breathed in her scent as he brushed his forehead against her skin to look up.

"Do you feel different?"

His eyes were impossibly blue. Clara knew that look, the scientist in action. The explorer in front of uncharted territory. The artist contemplating a wonder. It had yet to cease taking her breath away that he would reserve that look for her.

"I feel like I'm supposed to, but I really don't."

"You smell different. I didn't notice."

His hands moved to the hem of her shirt. He gave her a questioning look, asking for permission.

She nodded, and he lifted her shirt carefully, revealing her skin bit by bit. She got hold of the fabric when it reached below her breasts, keeping it lifted for him.

He glanced up at her again for just an instant before his hands started a gentle exploration, caressing her belly, slipping past the waistband of her jeans, as though he was trying to see if her skin felt different to the touch, if there was a bump growing there he hadn't seen.

"It's not showing," he declared eventually, and Clara detected a note of disappointment in his voice.

"It's not supposed to." Clara had already checked, obviously. Had stared very intently at the mirror in search of a difference, and had found none. "Not until much later, according to Google."

He gave a small intent noise in response.

"Your skin doesn't feel different either."

Clara knew he wasn't talking to anyone in particular, he simply liked to speak aloud when he was theorizing, deducing or studying.

"Yeah, not there at least. My tits hurt."

The Doctor snorted loudly against her skin.

"Your… huh."

His ears turned positively red as he snickered into her belly, avoiding her gaze.

"Don't _laugh_! There's nothing _funny_ about it." He kept giggling and she smacked the back of his head. "I'm serious, Doctor!"

" _Ow_. Yeah, well. We'll see what we can do about that."

He cleared his throat to mask more giggles and she glared at him, but he was smiling up at her, eyes laughing, and her expression softened.

"Our baby. Will it…" God, she hated saying 'it'. "How long will _they_ live? Will they be able to regenerate?"

"I think so. They're 100% Gallifreyan after all, just 50% of a very Clara-looking Gallifreyan."

He smiled a bit weakly, and she wondered if she had made a mistake reminding him that this baby was part of someone's scheme, but she had questions, and they couldn't avoid them forever.

"What about growing? How long until they're adult?"

"Hard to say. Physically, at least thirty. Mentally, well."

"That's going to be a problem."

"Why?" he asked, frowning.

"If we're going to raise them on Earth, that's going to be a problem. If they're always going to look younger than their mates, I mean. And what about school? If they're half as smart as you are, they'll be giving their GCSEs at four or something," she mused anxiously.

"I think they'll be smart enough to play dumb," he stated, getting up from the floor to wink knowingly at her.

"I don't like the sound of that." She bit her lip. "Are we going to raise them lying all the time like we do?"

The Doctor shrugged. "Lying is a vital survival skill."

"You _know_ what I mean."

"Clara, I think they're going to be _fine_. I think we'll do our best to raise them perfectly, and we'll fail miserably, like it's supposed to be." He took both her hands in his and held them close to his chest. "I'm sorry, Clara, but I think that's going to be _the last_ problem a child of ours will have."

Clara knew that was true. They lived a dangerous life, and something told her that they wouldn't stop because they were going to have a baby. Maybe they'd be more careful, but they wouldn't settle down and it was usually trouble that found them anyway.

"I'm worrying too much, aren't I?"

"Yes, you'll make a perfect mum."

"No, I won't! I'm going to be the parent that always worries about everything, that sets curfews and rules and makes them eat their veggies, and you're gonna be the cool parent that lets them do whatever they want and shows them things and brings them places. They're going to only love you."

"That's impossible," he laughed softly, cupping her face with his hands.

"How do you know?" she whispered.

The Doctor pressed a feather-light kiss to her lips.

"My Clara, they're 50% me." He smiled knowingly, eyes locked with hers. "They'll think you're perfect 50% of the time."


	5. Chapter 5

Clara had never thought of being pregnant as easy, but she hadn't imagined it would be so difficult either. It wasn't like she had thought it would be a walk in the park, but she had at the very least hoped that nine months -or more, in this case- without periods would have been, well, more _fun_.

Fun wasn't the word she would use to describe what she was going through, not by a long shot.

Mostly, it was the tiredness. The fatigue. She constantly felt as though she wasn't getting enough sleep, despite napping literally _all the time_. She hated that. She even fell asleep at school in between classes if she wasn't careful. And if she was careful, too. She had tried to fight it, at first, but had found that she had no control whatsoever over it all. She would nod off almost automatically every time she sat down and relaxed just for a minute, and she would sleep _a lot_. For hours. It completely messed up her schedule, the work she had to do for school, everything. Clara didn't like not being in control of her own body and time. It made her nervous and irritable and she woke up every time with a start, terrified of having slept for an exasperating number of hours.

The sickness wasn't getting much better either, no matter what she ate and what she did. The Doctor had been categorical that she couldn't take anything for it either, and had proceeded to empty her meds cabinet of everything except Band-Aids. Clara admitted he was trying to be helpful in other ways, though. He had changed shampoo, for one, which had seemed a very silly thing to him but had been a huge deal for her. That way it was much easier to be around him, and be close to him, which was extremely important because his chest made a very good pillow and pillows had suddenly become a fundamental element in her life.

The Doctor still left her in the morning before school and returned when the lessons were over, spending time on his own in the meantime, but he had started accompanying her with the TARDIS rather than let her ride her motorbike to work like she usually did. He had been pretty clear on the no bike too and, while usually she would have simply ignored him, she found that sometimes she was so tired she didn't trust herself to ride, or just didn't have the strength to, and relying on him was just easier.

The Doctor was reacting to the coming baby exactly in the way Clara should have expected: he read. He read in Gallifreyan about the ways their baby was growing inside her, which foods she should avoid and which she should eat more often, the values of hormones and substances in her blood that were fine and those that weren't. He read in English and other modern Earth languages, sometimes from the future, everything about human biology that could be useful for him to know, confronting the ways her body and the one of a Gallifreyan worked, learning everything that could help their baby stay alive. Finally, he read in several alien languages about interspecies breeding, their baby being still part human, even if that human part had been altered.

Clara could tell that the Doctor was still very concerned about who was responsible for the existence of the baby in the first place, though his top priority seemed for now making sure she carried the pregnancy to term. He had inspected her house, however, making sure it wasn't bugged and putting perception filters around the windows and doors, claiming that if someone really was spying on her, at least they'd have to try harder than simply looking through her open windows.

Clara could see how restless he was, how frantic in the way he worried for this mysterious person who had put them in this situation. He tried to hide it from her, of course, trying to spend his time with her relaxed and calm -albeit busying himself with something such as a book or his guitar- and pretending his brain wasn't constantly working on the problem in some shape or form even when he was lying casually with her on her sofa, soothing her nausea with positive thoughts and gentle caresses of his hand in her hair.

Clara woke up. Which was when she realized she had fallen asleep. _Again_.

"Hello, sleepy-head," the Doctor said, a note of amusement in his voice that Clara _detested_. He seemed to think it really funny that she couldn't relax for a second without falling asleep in the blink of an eye.

"I hate you," she murmured. "I hate this."

She looked up at him. She remembered cuddling with him on the sofa, lying on her side, right on top of him, her legs between his as he lay on his back and trailed his fingers through her hair.

She gathered she must have slept for a while since he had changed their positions, accommodating himself better on her small sofa by resting his head on the armrest and letting his legs dangling off the edge of the sofa from the knees down, leaving more space for her to curl up in a ball on his side and place her head over his stomach rather than his chest, where his dry muscles had just a hint of softness.

"How's the nausea? Better?"

Clara gave a vague noise. Yes. Maybe. For the moment.

The Doctor peered down at her from behind a notebook, which Clara realized was hers. A pile of red-covered papers lying on his chest suggested he was grading essays for her, something he had taken up doing since she'd gotten pregnant. He prepared lessons for her, corrected homework, and graded papers. And while she had hated it at first and he was perhaps a bit too knowledgeable and meticulous for high-schoolers, she had soon realized that it was really a _huge_ help when he kept doing it despite her protests, since she kept spending too much time sleeping and he never woke her.

"I hate this. The napping. Adults do _not_ nap. Children nap."

"Pregnant adults nap, Clara. It's completely natural. Your body is spending a lot of energy to build a new life and-"

"Yeah, yeah, I know," she interrupted, irritated. Why did she feel so angry so suddenly? That was another thing she hated, the mood swings. "Still hate it. I'm a grown woman, not a five-year-old _. I'm twenty-bloody-eight_!"

The Doctor frowned, putting down her notebook and putting on his concerned-and-confused eyebrows.

"You're twenty-seven, Clara."

She propped herself up and sitting -slowly, she tended to feel light-headed these days if she moved too fast-.

"Nope, twenty-eight. What are you talking about?"

"Your birthday. It's the 23rd of November."

He dropped papers and notebook a bit carelessly on the floor, and sat next to her.

She smiled warmly at him, caressing his hand. "It is. I didn't think you'd remember."

"Of course I know when your birthday is, Clara!" He sounded almost outraged at the accusation that he might not. "We celebrated it last year. It was your twenty-seventh."

" _We_ didn't celebrate it last year, you were- _oh_."

Finally, she understood the reason of the confusion. She had celebrated her twenty-seventh birthday with him, yes, the other him, but her twenty-eighth birthday had been only a few months before, and he had been gone.

"What? I was what?"

"You were gone. It's February, Doctor. You came back on Christmas. You weren't on Earth when I celebrated it. At least, I don't think so."

Clara saw the realisation dawn on his face, and his expression saddened.

"I'm sorry."

"Not your fault. I mean- half your fault. Both of us' fault, for lying to each other." She felt deeply sad at the memory of how much harm they had caused to each other because of their lies, and even felt tears start to form at the corner of her eyes. Bloody hormones.

"Yeah." He paused. "Who… were you alone? On your birthday?"

She smiled at the memory.

"No."

"Your family?"

"God, no. After Danny… I just- could barely bear them." She loved her gran and her dad too, she did, really. But they just kept looking at her with those sad eyes, she felt like they were pitying her. That was probably not their intention, but it was how she perceived their looks. "I spent it with Ade."

"Ade?"

"Adrian. Teacher. Bowtie, blue eyes, you met him."

" _Oooh_ , the who looked like old me-"

"Yeah, you keep saying that. You look nothing alike."

The Doctor made a face. Then his expression changed, turning into that hurt kind of jealous Clara had learned to recognise.

"So, you two…" he trailed off.

"Nope," she said firmly, grabbing his hand more tightly and bringing it to her lips to kiss his knuckles. They locked eyes and she nodded at him. When she felt the now familiar touch of his mind, she let the memories flow to him.

Adrian had been so kind. He had been a good friend to her, and to Danny. He was polite and shy, reserved, a little insecure. It was easy to like him and almost feel protective of him. He'd been so supportive with her when Danny had died, not pitying her but grieving with her, crying with her, letting her vent to him. It seemed like a strange thing to say, but Danny's death had strengthened her friendship with Adrian. They spent a lot of time together at school and sometimes even went out, growing out of the loss of Danny together -though Ade had managed much better than she had-.

When Adrian had discovered that she had decided to spend her birthday without her family, he had insisted she should spend it at least with her friends.

She hadn't been dedicating much time to her friends then, both when she had been spending a lot of her time with the Doctor and after Danny's death, and Adrian had somehow become her closest friend, be it because they worked together or by mere chance. Ade had then insisted she should go out with him for dinner, celebrate properly.

" _Look, Ade, I get it, you're sweet, but I want us to remain just friends, okay?"_

" _Clara, you think I'd- I'd- ask you out? After Danny? It's not like that, I swear. Just, you know, we could- have dinner. Have fun. Yeah?"_

" _I really don't think that's a good idea-"_

" _Clara, I swear I'm not- you know- huh, hitting on you or something. I'd never hit on you."_

" _Oh, well, thank you very much!" she had half-joked. "Look, I'm not saying you're lying but I know how this things go…"_

" _Clara. What I'm trying to say is- is- I'm-_ _ **I'm gay**_ _. I'm really_ _ **not**_ _asking you out."_

Clara had felt like the biggest idiot on the planet, plus a bit offended that Ade hadn't come out to her sooner. Then again, he was a very reserved sort of person and after all she had never told him she was bisexual either.

They had gone to dinner together and Clara had felt better than she had in months. They had talked about Ade's boyfriend, Ade blushing every two sentences. Clara had come out to him, too, and Adrian had been surprised. She had opened up to him about Nina, and it had felt good to tell him. Only the Doctor and her Gran had known until then. Her dad knew only bits -partly because he didn't want to know-. Then they had moved the conversation to other, more pleasant things, Clara had laughed for what felt like the first time in months, and overall had had a great time.

"He's been good to you," the Doctor summarized, filing away the information somewhere in his brain as really meaningful. Clara could feel he was angry with himself, however, for not being the one who had been there when she had needed someone.

"You're here now, that's what matters," she reassured him. She leaned into him and let her head casually rest on his shoulder, feeling him stiffen only slightly at the contact. She sighed. "We'll need to tell Dad. And Gran."

"Tell them what?" he asked, evidently paying little attention to her thoughts, still focused on Adrian and her birthday.

"Baby," she said simply.

It had crossed her mind in the previous days, when her dad had called her or she had called her gran, but she hadn't had the heart to say it. God, saying things seemed to always be the most difficult thing in her life. Besides, she hated the idea of telling it on the phone. Okay, she had developed a bad relationship with phone calls, too.

The Doctor wrapped a protective arm around her, pulling her closer and resting his head against hers.

"Can't be that hard, they know you're with me already, it's only logical- what?"

He stopped as she stiffened in his arms and he could sense her alarm in her mind. She sucked in a breath.

"Yes, about that…"

"You haven't told them," he perceived easily as the thought surfaced in her mind.

"Nope." She bit her lower lip and clutched nervously the sleeve of his coat, one of his hands still in hers.

"Oh."

He was hurt, Clara knew. She hadn't meant him harm, tough, she merely had wanted to keep their relationship to herself for a while and not have the bother of all the questions from her dad and, and, well, yes, she had sort of forgot to tell anyone at all. It just hadn't come up in the conversation. And she didn't want to tell them on the phone, either. Or maybe she hadn't told anyone because she was afraid of losing the good things life gave her as soon as she started building something around them… or something like that. The therapist she had talked to after her mum had died had said that. Talked about it being a defence mechanism, to not get too attached and suffer less. Telling people things made them more real, and real things have consequences.

Right. Not a good train of thought. She shook those thoughts away.

"I'm sorry."

"It's okay," he shrugged. "I think your gran already knows. About you and me, I mean. She called me your boyfriend on the phone the other day."

She looked up at him. "That was weeks ago. And were you eavesdropping?"

"Time Lord," he answered, as though that explained everything.

"I still have to tell Dad." She got up, slipping out of the Doctor's embrace, standing in front of him. "God, what do I tell him?"

"That we're having a baby?" he asked, sitting still, looking up at her.

"Yes, but what do I _tell_ him? Hey Dad, remember the Doctor? Who showed up naked last year looking thirty years younger? No? He's a 2000-year-old alien being whom I've been travelling through time and space with for the past four years and now I'm pregnant?"

Clara made an exasperated gesture and abruptly sat back down next to the Doctor. She groaned into the thick fabric of his coat. She felt like crying again for some reason. Just hiding her face into the Doctor's shoulder forever and avoiding confronting her family seemed like a really good option all of a sudden.

"Well, when you say it like that…"

"Why, is there a good way to say it?"

She wrapped her arms around his thin frame and pressed her face harder into him where his neck met his shoulder. He patted her back awkwardly and tried to soothe her with his thoughts.

"I don't understand, what's so bad about it?"

"That I've been lying to him for the past years?"

She bumped her head hard against his neck, tears rolling down her cheeks. He grimaced, more out of concern for her than out of pain.

"Well, that's not exactly optimal, but I guess he ought to be happy to become a grandfather? I liked being a grandfather."

"That's not the point! The point is you're an alien, and the baby's an alien and-"

" _Clara_." The Doctor moved to face her and cupped her cheeks with his palms, locking eyes with her. "It's not the end of the world." He wiped away her tears with his thumbs. "You've seen the end of the world. Multiple times. It's not even that bad."

Clara laughed briefly, in the midst of a sob. Of course he was right, but everything seemed so difficult…

She felt a steady flow of reassuring, positive thoughts from him. That helped.

"Are you going to be okay?" he asked.

She nodded, then proceeded to hug him again and bury her face in his warm jumper, intending to stay there for a while, too. He wrapped his arms around her and held her gently, rocking her slightly. She could feel a thought bugging him, clearly distinguishable from the calmer ones he was selecting to make her feel better.

"Ask."

"Are you sure?"

She nodded, but didn't remove her face from where it was and didn't open her eyes, concentrating on the clean smell of his black jumper, the TARDIS laundry soap one of the few scents that still seemed pleasant to her.

"Let's do all the crying now, it's more practical."

"It's not-" He hesitated. "I don't want to make you cry."

"It's not your fault. Hormones and all that. I don't want to cry either."

The Doctor took a deep breath, as though preparing himself for a difficult task.

"You need to see a doctor." Clara went a bit rigid in his arms, and her hands clutched his jumper, but she let him continue. "Not necessarily right now, but in a few weeks. I'm thinking fifteenth week, tops."

She snuggled closer against him.

"Why can't it be you?"

She didn't like the idea of seeing a doctor. She didn't like the idea of someone she didn't know, someone she wasn't comfortable with, taking tests and exams on her and her baby.

"I don't-" He sighed. It cost him to admit it, but… "I don't have the knowledge, nor the experience to handle this. Interspecies pregnancy. Tricky thing. There might be… complications."

He whispered the last word, as though he hoped it wouldn't be true if he said it low enough. Clara swallowed thickly.

"For me or-"

"Both," he interrupted. "I want- I _need_ you to get the best care possible. I… I want the best expert to work on this and I… I'm not. I'm not that person."

And he hated that he wasn't. Clara felt it burn raw and deep beneath his skin through their linked minds.

"Okay."

If it was for their baby, she would do anything. A bit of being prodded and poked at by doctors never killed anyone.

"We can make it as easy as possible for you. You'll only have to go at all costs three times, for the ultrasounds, and that can be it. Before the fifteenth, at about the twenty-fourth and between the thirty-seventh and thirty-ninth. There's a whole lot of blood tests you'll have to do as well, but we can do all those in the three times we'll be going to the doctor. I can be the one to draw the blood if you prefer, even a pudding-brain could manage that. Then there's the urine test for infections and other things, and we need to start doing that monthly, but I can take care of that in the TARDIS."

"You've been giving this thought."

She looked up at him, surprised and even a bit proud of how much he already cared about this baby.

"Yeah, I… I spoke to a doctor. And she said she would do it. On our terms."

"She?" Clara cocked an eyebrow at him.

"Best expert on interspecies breeding I could find considering we needed someone knowledgeable both on Gallifreyans and Humans, and operating not too far into the future since your species will evolve and interbreed and change considerably in the next one hundred thousand of years, and the difference between you and them could make what's medicine for them a poison to you."

"What do you mean with 'our terms'?" she asked, even though she could easily understand what the Doctor meant without even diving deeper in his mind.

"No one has to know about this baby, Clara. No one, in all of time and space. No one that doesn't already know. Not on Earth, that doesn't really matter, the perception filters I've set will be enough to fool UNIT and they're the only ones we should worry about. We can tell your family, and your school will know at some point, but at least your family I'll have to protect with a filter too. I'll think of something. But for the rest of the universe… our baby must remain a secret. This baby needs protection, Clara. It wouldn't- it wouldn't be the first time my enemies use an infant to get to me."

His voice was thick with emotion, and Clara felt again the tumultuous flood of his anger at the memories of the Silence using Amy and River to get to him, River who had been nothing but a new-born at the time.

She caressed his cheek, then the side of his head, trailing up, caressing his long hair, trying to reassure him with her mind like he so often did.

"Nothing is going to happen to our baby, Doctor. You'll keep them safe. Always. I don't doubt that, not even for a moment."

"I couldn't protect _them_!" he exclaimed, his voice breaking. Clara knew he meant Amy and River. "What if I fail again, what if- what if-" The rest of the words died on his lips.

"No ifs, Doctor. Do what you always do. Assume you're going to _win_. Don't think you're going to fail, _ever_."

"How long can I keep doing that, Clara? How long before that trick stops working?"

Clara could sense his fear, the dread that filled him to the brim of losing their baby, or her. It was overwhelming, and deafening if she just stopped to listen. She tried to put a barrier between herself and that crashing waterfall of emotions, dampening its intensity so she could focus on comforting the Doctor. She placed both her hands on his cheeks, forcing him to look at her. His eyes were bright.

"It won't. Not on _my_ watch." She kissed him softly on the lips. "I know you're scared, but I _know you_ , Doctor. You can do anything you set your mind to."

He smiled a little, and she felt his hearts warm.

"When _you_ say it, I can believe it."

She smiled in response.

"You do that."

He pressed their foreheads together, then nuzzled his temple against hers, something she was starting to believe was a display of affection typical of his species. She replicated the motion, then, and added a light kiss to the shell of his ear. She felt his reaction, surprised and pleased, and he looked relieved when their eyes met. She smiled at him.

"We can tell my family after we've been to the doctor, then," she started, also in an attempt to distract him from his concerns. "When we know the baby's alright, yeah?"

He nodded wordlessly, and Clara laughed softly when he voluntarily initiated a new hug, pulling her into him.


	6. Chapter 6

The waiting room of the doctor's office was full of couples. Fairly improbable couples, to be precise. One had no other reason to visit Doctor Zhabehasetrul but an incoming interspecies offspring of some sort. In most of the couples, one individual was more or less visibly bearing a child or eggs in some part of their body. In some couples, both partners were expecting. Some others were carrying one or more closely-guarded eggs. The Doctor noticed some individuals too, and it took him a while to realize it was probably the case of someone whose partner wasn't there, because they couldn't be or because they didn't want to be. The thought saddened him.

Clara and the Doctor would have looked almost out of place, with their relatively similar appearances and her barely-showing, dress-hidden bump, if the Doctor hadn't had the both of them wear a perception filter. To everyone in the room, they looked like a very unusual Lucanian and Terraberseker pairing. No one could discover that he, the Doctor, was expecting a child. He had already placed a perception filter on Doctor Zhabehasetrul when he had contacted her the first time, which allowed her to remember about him, Clara, or their baby solely in the presence of either Clara or himself.

"Doctor, I don't like this place. It smells."

Clara seemed to have taken up his habit of complaining about things since she'd gotten pregnant, and the Doctor had to admit he would have preferred her to take another one of his qualities, like the love for David Bowie or for yoghurt.

"Don't talk too much or too loud, the filter isn't strong on spoken language," he whispered.

" _I know_ ," she whispered back. "But it's true. I'm feeling sick."

The Doctor sighed and leaned back against the backrest of his chair, rubbing both his palms over his face in exhaustion and closing his eyes.

"You are _always_ feeling sick these days, Clara. Take _very_ deep breaths."

Ever since Clara had told him she was expecting a child, the Doctor had slept very little and it was taking its toll on him. He was hoping that Clara wouldn't notice just how tired he was. There was a chance she wouldn't: he always woke before her anyway, he told himself, and with the fact that he spent a couple of weeks on his own for every day he saw her she might think he wasn't due for a nap just yet. However, she was smart, his Clara, so smart, and he was almost certain she would find out in the end.

Luckily, it hadn't been too long, only a few months from his perspective, so he didn't look like a zombie for the lack of sleep yet. A few months since she'd told him she was pregnant. Oh, he had hoped she would let him live, understand how dangerous keeping this baby would be, but deep down he knew Clara Oswald and he knew how brave, how stubborn she was. Of course she wanted to keep their baby. Of course she didn't want him to be lonely, his sweet, kind Clara, risking her life for such a silly thing as his well-being. This the reason of his sleepless nights.

"You're right, it's working."

He could hear Clara breathe _very_ deeply in the seat next to his, long, loud and controlled breaths.

"I'm always right."

He leaned the back of his head against the wall behind him, resting his eyes.

" _Shut up_."

It wasn't that he couldn't sleep because he was worried, no. It was because concern kept him thinking, and his thoughts were always _so loud_. His head was full, full of dull noise, endless hypothesises of who and why, why always him, why always a baby, _Gods, why always a baby_. They'd tried it before with River, why did they never _learn_? He dreaded how dangerous he might become if anyone did so much as tearing a single hair from Clara's head. Just the thought of someone hurting her or their baby made his blood boil. He could feel the anger pumping in his veins, throbbing and hot.

In addition to the anger was an anxiety, something of which he didn't want to think of but that had been there since the moment he had woken up next to her for the first time, a deep-rooted fear of what would be of him after, if he lost Clara, _when_ he _inevitably_ would lose Clara. After getting revenge for it, tearing the universe apart if necessary to make whoever was guilty pay, what would be left of the man who once was the Doctor. If anything. If anything more than an empty shell. No, he didn't dare to think about that.

"When's our turn?"

"We're next, Clara, relax."

The Doctor opened his eyes and turned his head towards Clara, moving his right arm to place his palm over the back of her hand. He wondered what that gesture looked like to the other occupants of the room, through the perception filter.

Within seconds, a couple composed of a Pan-Babylonian and an augmented Human awkwardly exited the doctor's office. Soon after the Doctor heard Doctor Zhabehasetrul call 'Next!'

He quickly got up and entered the room, switching off their perception filters as he did so, Clara following right behind him, holding his hand.

The doctor's office was big, and brightly lit. Left to the entrance door, the wall was hidden entirely by a huge bookshelf, while to the right were different types and sizes of examination beds, suitable for a wide range of species. Opposite to the entrance were other two doors, labelled respectively 'laboratory' and 'private'.

Doctor Zhabehasetrul was sitting at her desk, placed at the very end of room, between the two doors, facing the entrance. Her upper right hand was filling in the last lines of a document in a messy but small handwriting, while her upper left moved securely over the touchpad of a laptop and her lower right rummaged in one of the drawers of the desk. Behind her back, on the wall, were hung her academic degrees, some articles from medical magazines and a number of posters depicting different anatomic tables. She briefly lifted her head from her documents to nod a greeting to the Doctor and Clara.

"Just a minute and I will be all yours," she assured in her native language, the one of a planet -Hantar 7- far far away from Earth, but the Doctor had no doubt that the TARDIS would be translating for Clara's benefit without a problem. "In the meantime, Doctor, your partner can lay down on the examination table. The one on the right, the closest to you, please."

The Doctor felt Clara pull him by the hand as she moved to the examination table. She sat on it, but didn't lie down. She tugged him roughly towards her by the collar of his shirt to whisper in his ear:

"Doctor. _She has four arms_!" she hissed.

' _I know, it's the standard for Hantarians,'_ he answered mentally after he got hold of Clara's hand again.

"She has suckers on her head!"

' _Those are her ears, Clara.'_

Hantarians sported long, dangling ears, composed of soft muscle rings of increasing diameter, smaller at the base and larger at the end of the auricle. Fortunately, despite what one might think, they didn't have a very good hearing.

' _Are you_ _ **sure**_ _she's the best expert?'_

It wasn't the first time he and Clara had to do with aliens who looked really different from them, but the Doctor guessed he should have told her that the person he had found wasn't a human. Clara didn't trust others easily and was especially wary of aliens who were really different from humans.

' _Of course, Clara. She's the most qualified by far.'_

' _Right. Got it. Can't have brains and looks all at once,'_ she sentenced. _'Unless you're me,'_ she added with a smile.

' _Or me,'_ he retorted instinctively, slightly offended. Clara scoffed. _'Anyway, she's a very beautiful woman for the canons of her species,'_ he said eventually.

Hantarians had a great variety of skin colours, females going from a white-ish pink to bright purple and males going from expired milk yellow to bright green: the brighter colours were considered obnoxious and unattractive, while the gentler tones were deemed much more elegant and aesthetically pleasing. Doctor Zhabehasetrul's skin was of a rosy tonality that reminded the Doctor of Clara's cheeks when she used her make up to colour them in, therefore falling in the second category. Her ears, as well as her trunk -another characteristic trait of her species, resembling that of an earthly elephant sea- were quite short too, which was considered cute and graceful.

"So. Clara. The Doctor already filled me in on your details," Doctor Zhabehasetrul said, contemplating the contents of a folder that she held with her lower arms as she turned on the monitor for the ultrasound with her upper left. "Regular Homo Sapiens, 21st century, twenty-eight years of age. Correct?"

"Yes," Clara answered simply. Her grip on his hand tightened and the Doctor could feel her nervousness.

"If you lie down and lift your dress, we can begin. The exam is much simpler than it used to be in your century. You can relax, the process is completely automated and there is no need for any invasive additional procedure. I will just run this little scanner here over your bump and that will be it."

The alien woman smiled kindly behind her small trunk, revealing little, pointy teeth, clearly trying to reassure Clara, which the Doctor appreciated. He knew that the other doctor was right about the exam being much less complicated in the 80th century than in the 21st. The process didn't even involve ultrasound anymore, the technology having improved immensely in sixty centuries, though the result was almost exactly the same, with a few extra details. The Doctor stood next to the examination table and kept holding Clara's hand, his eyes fixed on the small monitor where he knew he would see the first image of their baby growing inside Clara.

Clara lifted her dress and lay down, albeit still rigid, and showed her bare skin to the other woman, who then ran the scanner over it slowly.

It was a matter of seconds. On the monitor appeared a long list of data alongside the small, vaguely humanoid shape the Doctor had expected to see. He hadn't expected the flip his hearts made and the grin that plastered itself on his face at the sight, the hitch in his breath. He wanted to turn towards Clara, but he couldn't take his eyes off the image. Through Clara's mind he knew she felt the same, and a warm feeling of wonder and affection spread from her to him. He caressed the back of her hand with his thumb in response.

"Okay. There is only one baby, I think you knew that." Doctor Zhabehasetrul started, then pointed at the monitor with her upper left hand. "Here we have the head… and arms… the legs… and if we turn on the audio…" -she pressed a button- "…we hear their heartbeat."

Hearing his baby's hearts beat for the first time made the Doctor stop breathing. Loud and clear, a pattern of four beats, steady, unsynchronized with his own heartbeat, which was speeding up. He looked at Clara and she was looking at him, too, smiling. He saw in her mind the image of the idiotic smile that was on his face.

"Hearts like yours," Clara murmured, as though she were surprised by that fact, and there was awe in her voice and sparks in her eyes as she spoke.

"The baby's hearts seem healthy from what I can hear," Doctor Zhabehasetrul said, studying the monitor attentively. "The readings I am getting are all very positive too. You are fourteen weeks along. The baby is growing well compared with Gallifreyan standards, they are a just a bit small but nothing I would worry about given your size-"

"Wait," the Doctor interrupted. "I don't want you to overlook anything-"

"Yeah," added Clara. "I think-"

"I am a professional," Doctor Zhabehasetrul interrupted in turn. "You, Doctor, know just how qualified I am. You said it yourself, that you chose me as the most apt for your situation. I have been doing this job for over seven decades, and I can assure you I will not _overlook_ anything." The Doctor and Clara looked at each other in a shared mixture of consternation and embarrassment. Were they already being overprotective of their child? "Now, if you allow me, back to what I was saying. Development of the organs is also proceeding normally. I can already tell that there are no significant physical abnormalities of any kind. We can exclude most if not all illnesses that could terminate the pregnancy pre-term just from the readings I have here. It is too early on now, but next time I will see you I will certainly be able to determine the baby's gender." She paused. "Now I will need to draw your blood to run some tests, you will get the results in a few days."

' _Do you want me to-'_ the Doctor asked mentally, remembering he had promised Clara he would draw the blood if she preferred.

' _No, it's fine.'_

Doctor Zhabehasetrul was quick and efficient in drawing Clara's blood, the Doctor held Clara's hand the whole time and knew she felt very little pain. She could barely feel the small transparent plaster that got applied on her skin, one of the 80th century types that accelerated healing. She seemed much more relaxed than she had been all day.

Doctor Zhabehasetrul answered some questions Clara asked and recommended her to take certain prenatal vitamins and to be careful with this and that kind of food -things he had already researched and daily made sure Clara paid attention to-. Then she told them both not to worry, said her goodbyes and ended the visit, calling in another couple to take their place.

The Doctor quickly returned them to the TARDIS and then to Clara's place, trying not to draw too much attention on them. He thought Clara might be in want of a nap, too.

Joining her in a little nap wouldn't be a bad idea either, because he was starting to feel quite exhausted. It wasn't so much the lack of sleep that did it, but the constant vigilance. Even Clara had noticed and had scolded him about it. How nervous he was, restless, like a trapped wolf. He never sat, never rested, paced all the time, _patrolled_.

He was doing it right now too, as Clara undressed, peering out of the blinds and scanning the street outside with the eye of a soldier, of an officer. The cars parked, the people in the street, the red public phone box right opposite to Clara house. Studying, localizing the possible threats, his lips pursed in a thin line. A tension constricting his chest suggested that he was, again, missing the obvious. His eyebrows knitted together more closely at the sensation, to the point his brow started to hurt.

"I know that I can't tell you to stop worrying," Clara said, "but stop worrying."

Beautiful as ever, she was contemplating her reflection in the mirror at her side as she undressed, caressing her belly, examining the swell it had taken. Her state was evident enough now, though still concealed easily enough by the right dress or skirt. Clara was being very careful with hiding her pregnancy from others. For the moment, only she and the Doctor knew.

"That's confusing." He let go of the blinds to turn towards her. "You said-"

"I know what I said." Her eyes remained on her reflection in the mirror. "But stop worrying." She glanced briefly at him, as though to make sure he was going to agree with her.

The Doctor gave a last look at the blinds before closing the distance between Clara and himself, his right hand finding her cheek, directing her eyes on his.

"How can I?"

He felt so angry, and anxious. He felt powerless, because he seemed to be constantly a step behind the person -or people- that were trying to hurt them. He couldn't figure out the puzzle quickly enough. He had been so furious the moment he had realized Clara had been drugged, that he had punched a hole in the metal door of the TARDIS kitchen, broken three fingers. It had taken him weeks to understand that much: some cocktail of nanobots, Gallifreyan pheromones and just a dash of memory-worm blood to erase the last minutes from her mind. He had been such a fool, mindlessly taking advantage of her state without noticing anything was wrong at all, his own mind clouded, her scent so much like the one of someone of his own kind, so distracting and enticing.

Clara covered his hand with hers, than moved it to her lips to kiss his fingertips and then his knuckles, so very softly but with determination in her eyes.

"If something comes up, we'll face it."

"Something _will_ come up, Clara," he said, cupping her face with both hands now as he did his best to make her understand. There was no way they would be left alone and in piece with their baby, no matter how hard they wished for it to be true.

Clara shook her head and lowered his hands, taking them in hers and holding them close to her chest.

"I _know_ , Doctor. But it could be months from now, so stop overthinking it and don't worry. You're not the one who has to feel like shit for months, so let yourself _enjoy it_. Let yourself be _happy_. Don't let whoever did this to me rob you of our time. It's ours, it's finite, and it will never come back. This is our only chance of having a baby of our own, and I want you to pay your full attention to it. To me. To this baby. You've done so much for the universe, it _owes_ you this at least."

He sighed. "Clara…"

"Don't 'Clara' me. Do as you're told."

He closed his fists in her hands and her grip tightened in response. He thought that no matter how right Clara was he couldn't help thinking that he wanted to protect Clara and their baby at all costs, in any way possible. He felt compelled to worry and overthink and do as much as he could and more to protect them. He only had to be more careful in hiding those thoughts from Clara.

Clara pulled him lightly towards her to get his attention, raising her eyebrows at him.

"Okay?"

He nodded but did not say anything, knowing he couldn't lie to her when their minds were connected, knowing that he didn't _want_ to lie to her. It was just a necessity.

Clara seemed satisfied with just that gesture, and let go of his hands. She returned her gaze to the mirror and lifted her undershirt over her head, tossing it on their bed. Again her hands went to her hips and her belly as she removed her underwear and studied the profile of her reflection with a grimace.

"It's huge."

"I'd say it's still quite small, considering you have thirty-four weeks ahead of you."

Clara answered to that with a groan, her hands tracing the curve of her belly, definitely more visible when she was naked.

"I'm ugly."

His eyes widened in disbelief.

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm fat."

"You're not fat, Clara. You're pregnant. And how does your weight affect your beauty?"

She turned towards him at that.

"You don't care?"

"Of course I _care_ , Clara," he answered without hesitation. "I think you're beautiful. You're better than that. You're radiant."

A smile tugged timidly at the corner of Clara's lips.

"You really are a _brilliant_ liar, Doctor."

The Doctor frowned, taken aback. He thought that pregnancy _suited_ her. The bump she seemed to worry so much about to him seemed just a lovely match to the rotund curves of her hips, her thighs, her breasts, her face. As the weeks had gone by, something in her eyes had changed. They were brighter, almost hypnotically so to him. Her face appeared rounder than ever and her cheeks were always flushed in the most gorgeous way. He couldn't understand how Clara could see anything other than perfection in herself.

He brought his hand to her face, his thumb stroking her cheekbone tenderly. He let his consciousness melt into hers again and he showed her his thoughts, the images of her in his mind, the depth of the affection he felt for her and for their unborn baby too, already.

"Clara Oswald, you will never look ugly to me."

Clara smiled properly this time, at his thoughts and words, and he couldn't help grinning back at her. She shook her head briefly, then threw her arms around his neck and pulled him down for a hug.

He wrapped his arms around her, which was when he realized she was still naked.

"Clara?"

"Mmh?"

"Are you okay now?"

"I'm fine," she assured, face buried against his chest.

"Get dressed. You and the baby will catch a cold."

Clara giggled. Something about it being spring and unborn babies being unable to catch a cold, he sensed. Right, well, there's no such thing as being too careful.

She broke the embrace. Somewhat reluctantly, he felt as their minds separated. Then she walked to the wardrobe and started picking some comfortable clothes.

"It's showing too much already," she said without looking at him.

"What?"

"Bump. Is that even _normal_?"

She met his eyes as she put on some pyjama trousers.

The Doctor inhaled sharply and pursed his lips.

"It's normal for… someone of your size," he reassured, accurately avoiding the words 'short', 'small' and 'tiny'.

Clara shot him a look anyway.

"It will be impossible to hide in a few weeks, you know that?"

"So?"

"So, the school will know. My friends. Everyone in the neighbourhood."

"I'll take care of that." The Doctor had already started working on a series of perception filters and other devices to take care of that matter. Something to prevent anyone who knew about the pregnancy from telling about it to other people. "Are we going to tell your family now? You said we would tell them as soon as we knew the baby was healthy."

Clara put on a long-sleeved shirt and sighed.

"I don't want to tell my family."

"Why?" he asked, confused. Clara gave another heavy sigh and sat on their bed with her hands in her lap, the fingers of each hand tormenting those of the other. She didn't reply. "You're scared," he deduced.

Clara nodded emphatically, eyes fixed on her hands, but she remained silent for a while. He went to sit next to her on the bed, just barely caressing her shoulder with a gentle hand.

"I'm scared of what Dad will say. About you and your age and your species… and the baby, the lies and… just- _everything_."

The Doctor wrapped an arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer to him.

"Why do you care?"

" _He's my dad!_ " she exclaimed.

"He is. Which is why he will still love you no matter what."

"I'm not so sure about that-"

"Clara," he interrupted, lifting her chin with his index, encouraging her to meet his eyes. "When they first put your child in your arms and you hear their first wail, and they clutch at your clothes for the first time and bury their tiny little head into your chest… you let them inside your heart like an idiot, without even realizing it. And trust me, they never leave."

"Did he really love me when he opposed to my relationship with Nina? Or when he married Linda? Or when-"

"I think he did love you. Maybe not in the right way, but he still did."

The Doctor knew Clara's father almost exclusively from what she said about him, but he had formed his own opinions.

Even if Dave Oswald had hadn't accepted that Clara might have loved a girl, the Doctor thought he still was doing what he thought best for her daughter, even though evidently he _did not_ know what was best. The Doctor didn't forgive him for not accepting Clara just the way she was, but in his defence he _had_ been right about Nina not being a valid choice for Clara, even if it had been for reasons that had nothing to do with Nina being a woman.

Regarding his marriage with Linda so early after Clara's mum's death, the Doctor couldn't help but think that Dave must have thought Clara could use a female parental figure in her life after breaking up with Nina and losing her mother in rapid succession, also because clearly the male paternal figure was lacking the most basic dad skills. It hadn't been the right decision, but the Doctor had established a long time before that Clara must have inherited her intelligence from her mother: her dad was a classic example of pudding-brain-ness.

"It will be worse the longer I wait, won't it," Clara said, resigned.

"I fear so."

"I should phone Dad. So they could… meet you." A pause. "Again."

"Okay, family dinner. I can do family."

"Can you?" Clara asked sceptically.

"Why wouldn't I?"

She shook her head, but smiled.

"We should have lunch. At Gran's. You know, neutral territory."

"Whatever you want," he said simply. He would be okay with whatever Clara wanted. Besides, it was about her family, her choice.

"Right. Okay," she said, taking a deep breath. "I can do this. We can do this."

She got up from the bed to rummage in her purse, taking her phone out. Quickly, she dialled the number.


	7. Chapter 7

"Just how much do we tell them, exactly?" Clara asked as she and the Doctor made their way towards the block where her old apartment, now her gran's, was, Clara having forbid him to park the TARDIS anywhere near the place and particularly, especially threatened him with premature regeneration by slap should he do as much as consider parking _inside_ the flat.

"What do you mean, how much?"

He frowned, stroking her hand in his, their minds reassuringly drifting into each other in gentle waves, their confines blurred or erased entirely but not as deeply bonded as when he and Clara were alone together.

"We have to tell them about the baby and about you but, uhm, we could, you know, gloss over all the lying and time-travelling and- _evil schemes_ and-"

"Why would you skip all the good bits?" he asked, confused.

Clara sighed, her defeated-and-exasperated sigh.

"Because my Dad is- it's a lot to take in for- right. Right. Okay. We tell them everything." She turned towards him as they kept walking, biting her lower lip nervously. "Almost. No evil schemes, okay?"

"No evil schemes."

"And not one word about risking our lives for fun."

"But-"

Clara glared at him as she rang the doorbell. "Not one word."

" _Clara?"_ asked a voice through the doorbell phone.

"Yes, it's me!" The door opened and they got inside. "And- my Dad," Clara said to the Doctor, "You have to call him Mister Oswald, okay?"

"I thought his name was Dave?" he asked as they climbed the stairs. "Can't I just call him Dave?

"His name's David, and you're most definitely _not_ calling him Dave."

"But-"

"And let _me_ do all the talking."

" _I_ am the one who does the talking!"

They reached the door to Clara's grandmother's flat.

"Shhh!"

Clara shushed him just in time, because in that moment the door opened to reveal Clara's father, grandmother and stepmother.

A long minute of awkward silence followed as Clara's family took in the sight of the two of them. David Oswald was staring in the Doctor's direction with a kind of surprised expression that tended dangerously towards shocked. Linda seemed to share her husband's astonishment, to the point that the Doctor turned worriedly to look behind himself to check if there was a Silurian in a clown suit behind his back or something. There wasn't. Clara's tension cut sharp like a knife in his thoughts. He felt her exhale a heavy breath.

"So. Hello. Uhm… here he is!" she exclaimed, putting on a forced smile. "This is the Doctor." Her dad's expression became even more stunned, as though he had needed formal confirmation that this was actually the man her daughter was dating to believe it was true. "You… uhm… sort of know each other already."

Clara's grip in the Doctor's hand tightened considerably as her family's silence went on for a few more seconds.

"Well," Clara's grandmother said, interrupting the silence, grinning brightly at the Doctor, "aren't you the most handsome young man!"

That gave a nice stroke to his ego, like only Clara's rare compliments could do, and he couldn't help but grin back at the woman. He glanced at Linda and David to see if they still seemed hostile: Linda was looking disapprovingly at him and Clara alternatively while her husband was staring at his daughter, looking worried.

"Come- Come inside, Clara. I guess- it seems we have a lot to talk about."

Clara's family stepped aside to let her and the Doctor in. Clara nodded at her dad and the Doctor clutched her hand tighter in reassurance as he headed towards the kitchen, easily remembering where it was, closely followed by Linda and Clara's gran, but he was stopped in his tracks by Clara's hand leaving his.

Clara's father pulled her close by her wrist, and whispered in her ear something low enough to be inaudible for any human except Clara. The Doctor overheard it all effortlessly.

"Clara… what do you mean 'this is the Doctor'? He's a completely different man and… well, he looks like he could be twice you age! And, _God_ , Clara. Are you…? I mean… the bump…"

"I can explain _everything_ ," Clara hissed back, a hint of panic in her voice. "I promise. And- he is… uhm… not twice my age."

Clara freed herself from her dad's gentle grip and turned to the Doctor. He beamed at her automatically: he was twice _no-one's_ age, and he was glad they had cleared that. Clara smiled back tentatively and grabbed his hand again.

They were still holding hands when everyone awkwardly sat down on the table, the starters already served and ready to be eaten. The Doctor enthusiastically reached for a very inviting thingy that looked like it had yoghurt in it. Clara smacked his hand away.

'What are you doing?' she mouthed, shooting him a dirty look.

'Eating!' he mouthed back. He retracted his hand, massaging it with the other.

Clara shook her head, but there was a little smile on her face, which the Doctor counted as a small victory.

"Clara," her gran interrupted, "let the poor thing eat, that's what food is for. He looks like you've been keeping him on diet, he's all bones!" She took his plate and filled it with something from every starter. "Please, be my guest, Doctor."

The Doctor accepted his now full plate with a grin and everyone else started picking at the food too. Clara was mostly pretending to eat, tormenting her food with the fork but hardly ever really bringing it to her mouth. Linda was alternating forkfuls of salad with long glares at them both. David ate small bites with little enthusiasm, looking at Clara in such a worried and pained fashion it seemed like he thought she had contracted some lethal illness. Only Clara's gran appeared to be entirely unaffected by the collective embarrassed silence.

"So…" David started, "uhm…how did you two meet?"

Clara and the Doctor looked at each other briefly before trying to give an acceptable answer.

"Well…"

"Actually…"

"She was dead and-"

"He knocked on my door dressed as a monk- _wait_ , what?"

"Well, you _were_ dead. But I found you again."

"I said don't mention the dying!"

"You said don't mention the _risking your life_ , not _the dying_! And do we really have to bring up the monk thing now? Bit embarrassing, that."

"Clara," David said, confused. "Clara, what's going on? What are you talking about?"

"Dave, let the kids explain," Clara's grandmother said, smiling encouragingly at them.

"But, Mum…"

The Doctor and Clara glanced at each other again. Clara seemed to have lost the capacity to speak. The Doctor wondered if, after all the lies she had gotten used to tell, she wasn't capable of telling the whole, naked truth anymore. He placed his hand over hers on the table.

"She's my companion," he said matter-of-factly.

"Well, we've understood that much," Linda said with a scoff.

"No, we- we travel together," Clara cleared. "…we travel in Time."

"And Space," he added.

"What does that mean, Clara? What are you talking about?" David asked, only looking more confused.

"Dad, look… I know it's hard to believe but it's true. That's what we do. We've been doing it for years. We travel together and… we save people. And… have fun."

Clara smiled on the last words, glancing at the Doctor. He smiled back.

"How do you expect us to believe this?" her dad argued. "How can all of this be possible? Time travel?"

Clara sighed. "The Doctor's an alien." All of her little family gasped in surprise. "His race is much more advanced and… his spaceship, the TARDIS, it can travel though Time and Space."

"Clara, but- that's incredible!" David exclaimed. "Are you really an alien?"

"Well, _you_ are the aliens to me. But yes, I'm from a different planet. Very far from Earth, and so much older than your Sun itself."

"Dear God," David murmured.

"Oh, Clara, look who you got!" Clara's gran said happily. "A time traveller! Much better than any of those spineless posh little boys on Linda's list!"

She giggled, and the Doctor found himself chuckling too. Clara was smiling and even her dad's lips were slightly curved.

" _Enough of this nonsense_!" Linda exclaimed. "Is anyone going to mention the fact that she's dating someone twice her age? And that she's _obviously_ pregnant? You must be at least five months along! How could you think you could hide it? It's _huge_!"

The Doctor got up so rapidly the table creaked under his palms as he pulled himself standing. He wasn't going to allow one more word against Clara.

" _How dare you_ -"

"Shut up, Doctor," Clara interrupted. "I can speak for myself." Only then did he realize that she was now standing too, and glowering at Linda. "How _dare_ you, how dare you judge _me_ , when you've married my father only out of interest, and taking advantage of his grief for my mother's death? _You_ know _nothing_ about me. You've never wanted to know anything about me. You've never been a mother to me, _ever_ , you've simply sat on your bloody high horse to judge every step I took! Well, bad news, it's time to get off, Linda, and _stop trying to control my bloody life!_ "

The Doctor's heart swelled with pride. Of course Clara didn't need him to defend her, even if he felt automatically compelled to do so. Linda's expression was priceless, mouth open and eyes wide, of utter dismay and horror, as though she had never realized before that Clara was her own person, fully able to speak for herself and decide for herself. Clara's father seemed a little distressed too, but he didn't say a word. Clara's gran had her hand over her mouth to stifle her laughter.

" _And for your information_ ," Clara continued, raising her voice even more, "the Doctor is _not_ twice my age. He's well over two thousand years old. The child I'm carrying is his, yes, _ours_ , and I'm not trying to hide it from anyone. I came here to tell my dad and my gran that they can be part of my new family if they want, but don't you worry Linda, _you_ are _not_ welcome. Stay away from me and from my child. _Stay a long way away_."

Clara's face was reddened and tears were rolling down her cheeks, as it always happened when she was angry, but Linda was the one truly distraught, who looked at Clara with silent rage for a moment longer before getting up abruptly.

"Linda, what are you doing?!" David asked, alarmed.

"Home, I'm going _home_!" she shouted dramatically as she marched towards the entrance and grabbed her coat. "And I _will_ deal with you later, David, don't think I'll let you get away with this one!"

With that, she got out, slamming the door behind her as she went.

"But- Linda!" Clara's dad exclaimed, getting up himself.

"Sit down, Dave," his mother said, grabbing her son by the shoulder of his fleece to pull him down to sit. 'Good riddance,' she mouthed at the Doctor and Clara.

"Everyone keep eating," Clara half-ordered, wiping her tears with her sleeve as she sat back down.

She refilled her plate with most of what was left of the starters, keeping her head down, avoiding everyone's gaze. The Doctor tentatively stretched out his head to touch her shoulder, but she slapped his hand away. He grandmother got up and leaned forward towards her to lift her chin.

"Clara, sweetheart, why don't you come in the kitchen with me and help me with the roast, hmm?" She smiled reassuringly at her granddaughter.

Clara remained silent for a long moment, then she gave a rapid glance at the Doctor.

"I'll be back in a moment," she told him, releasing a shuddering breath.

He didn't want to be left alone with her boring, pudding-brained father, and she probably knew it.

"I know."

Her hand touched his and squeezed it tight.

' _Behave with Dad, okay?'_

' _Why wouldn't I?'_

Clara shook her head, smiling a little.

' _ **Behave**_ _.'_

She got up from her chair and followed her grandmother into the kitchen.

The Doctor switched his empty plate with Clara's full one and started to empty that too.

"So." David Oswald started. "Are you really two thousand years old?"

He seemed genuinely curious. The Doctor smiled.

"I think I've lost count a couple of times. Clara says I must be at least twenty-three centuries old, but I'm sure I can't be over twenty-five."

"Jesus. That's… a lot to take in." He made a pause. "What are you doing with my daughter, a man of your age?"

The Doctor frowned, confused. "What does my age have to do with Clara?"

"What does- well, people will talk!"

The Doctor only grew more puzzled. "Well, yes, humans tend to do it all the time."

"I mean- I mean about the fact Clara's dating someone twi- a lot of times her age."

" _Oooh_. Right." Now he understood the problem. Clara had explained him at least once that she thought he looked older than her to humans, and that their relationship might seem inappropriate to some people. "I assure you, _Mister Oswald_ , my age does not affect my love for your daughter."

David pursed his lips. "You love her, then? 'Cause if you're giving her a child then I want you to have serious intentions and-"

The Doctor smiled. Clara's father was an idiot, but a well-meaning one at least.

"I'm in love with your daughter," he interrupted. "I love Clara more than even she can comprehend."

~oOo~

Clara followed her gran into the kitchen, in slight apprehension at the idea of leaving the Doctor alone with her dad. Her gran checked on the roast in the oven for a moment.

"Needs ten more minutes." She then turned to face Clara, smiling knowingly. "What are you waiting for, sweetheart? Lift that dress and let me see my future grand-grandchild!"

Clara smiled somewhat hesitantly, and lifted her dress as requested.

"How did it happen?" her gran asked. "Didn't know you were planning on having a little one around just yet."

"Uhm… it happened."

Clara didn't know what else to say. After Doctor Zhabehasetrul had told her how long she had been pregnant, Clara had done a lot of thinking and she had gone back to that afternoon, that day in January. She remembered the morning spent in London between this and that and then… nothing much. Thinking of Danny. Coming home. Feeling too hot. The Doctor's lips on hers and his body against hers. Waking up in his arms, on the sofa, God knows how many hours later, late at night.

"Do you want this baby? Does the Doctor want it?" her gran asked as she sat on a chair to be on level with Clara's bump.

"Yeah, yeah. We talked about it and-"

"Good, good. That's the only thing that matters, you know?"

"Do you think it's really that huge?" Clara asked anxiously as her gran's warm fingers touched her bump, Linda's harsh words still ringing in her ears.

"Don't be absurd, my child. Of course it's not. Don't listen to that old cow. Five months! _Ha!_ No one's ever even let her close to a baby or a pregnant woman for fear she might turn them into toads! How many weeks along are you?"

Her gran caressed her belly delicately, studying the shape it had taken.

"Fifteen."

"Pfft! Your mum was way bigger at this point, and she was taller than you are."

"Too small, then? Should I be worried?"

"Of course not, Clara," her grandmother said gently. "Did you see a doctor?" She looked up at her granddaughter and Clara nodded. "What did the doctor say?"

Clara sighed. "That I've got nothing to worry about."

"See? The doctor knows best, for sure." She let Clara let go of her dress and got up from the chair. She touched her nose eloquently. "It's going to be a girl," she sentenced.

"What? How can you tell?"

"The shape of the bump, obviously! What do they even teach you at school these days, hmm? She's a girl, trust me, sweetheart."

Clara smiled condescendingly. Her gran was the smartest person she knew, except probably the Doctor, but she was a bit bonkers at times.

"The doctor said she couldn't tell yet, Gran."

"Oh, these young doctors! All technology and computers and no eyes! We'll see, my child. I bet you a tenner that it's a girl."

"Gran, I'm not making a bet with you. You don't have the money and you always win somehow."

Clara laughed and her gran giggled. The timer of the oven rang.

"All the more reasons why I should bet, my child! Now, let's feed this roast to our boys, shall we?"

Clara nodded with a smile, and they took the roast out of the oven. Somehow, talking to her gran had always had the power to calm her, even more than the thing the Doctor was able to do with his mind. She wondered why she had waited so long to search her gran's advice.

The rest of the lunch didn't go too bad. Surely much better than the first half of it.

She and the Doctor quickly exchanged memories of the minutes spent apart before everyone started to take their portion of the roast.

' _A girl, then?'_

' _So Gran says. More than I can comprehend, huh?'_

Her dad enjoyed explaining all his alien conspiracy theories to the Doctor, who would be delighted to listen and even more delighted to dismantle each theory sentence by sentence, explain why and how they were absolutely wrong, much to her father's disappointment. Her gran started to tell jokes then, and sort of saved her dad's morale. Clara and her dad had already heard most of the jokes, but the Doctor hadn't and he kept asking for more and laughing wholeheartedly, that laughter Clara loved, showing his all of his teeth, throwing his head back, nearly falling off his chair. Her dad was just so much better when Linda wasn't around, he was his own person and not what the woman dictated him to be, to do and to say.

"So, Doctor," her dad asked as he eventually accompanied them to the door, after the meal. "I hope to hear you will marry Clara soon. Make an honest woman of her."

If the Doctor had needed to breathe like a human, he would have choked on his breath on the spot. Fortunately, he didn't, even though he still pretended to be suffocating in a fit of cough.

"We don't need that, Dad," she said, chuckling at the Doctor's scene.

"But- what will you be to each other? Think of the baby-"

"We're best friends," she interrupted. "And partners."

"I'm her carer." "I'm his carer."

The Doctor and Clara exchanged a grin when they realized they had spoken in unison.

"We are what we are, Dad. There's no need to label it. I don't want to label it."

What she and the Doctor had was special. Different, unique. Clara felt that trying to frame it with labels wouldn't make sense, wouldn't be right. They had something so huge and important, such a depth of _feel_ for each other that it could not -and should not- be caged, because it would mean belittling it.

"I'm sorry, Clara. It's just that I want the very best for you."

"I _am_ the very best!" the Doctor exclaimed, offended. Clara laughed. "What? Aren't I?"

"Of course you are," she said, still smiling and laughing, and kissed the tip of his nose.

She loved the little confused look that appeared on his face when she did that, his eyes widening and his eyebrows coming together in a quite adorable frown, and the way he kept staring at her for minutes afterwards, as though she were the most incomprehensible and irresistible thing in the universe.

"Clara, I-" her father started, "I'm sorry about Linda's behaviour, I- I do want to be a part of this." He gestured vaguely at her and the Doctor. "Of your life. Of your child's life."

Clara gave him a half smile, a bit surprised, a bit happy, mostly unsure of what to say. "I- Thank you."

"There are so many other thing I should probably apologize for-"

"Dad-"

"Let the kids go home, Dave," her gran interrupted. "Clara's got a child inside her and a man to take care of. She has much better things to do than listen to your belated apologies. I'm sure that everything you want to say, she already knows."

Clara nodded, suddenly wondering both how she could have doubted that her father really cared about her and when he had become so straightforward about it. He had never been a man of clear words and quick decisions.

The Doctor and Clara said their goodbyes and in a minute they were out of the flat and out of the building.

Clara stood on her tiptoes and pulled him down for a long kiss, feeling his surprise in her mind and the sweet taste of food still in his mouth as he kissed her back, his arms wrapping around her loosely for fear of holding her too close and squishing her bump too much.

"What was that for?" he asked, the beginning of a blush blooming on his cheeks. "Not that I'm complaining."

"Because you've been amazing. You're amazing. I don't know what you did to my dad, if you sonicked him smart or-" She shook her head, smiling. "Thank you."

"Not discussing that I _am_ amazing, but I think you did it all on your own, Clara."

He smiled sweetly at her and Clara grinned back at him. "I did, didn't I?"

"Yes. I think you're pretty amazing too, Clara Oswald."

He smiled charmingly and Clara tousled his hair in response, feeling him lean into her touch.

"I should be thanking myself, then."

"Yeah, you should do that," he said lightly with a grin. "But there's still something you might want to thank me for."

"And what would that be?"

He opened the TARDIS doors with a snap of his fingers and winked at her. He knew so well how she loved it when he was such a show-off. "It's a surprise."

~oOo~

Clara couldn't believe her eyes when the Doctor invited her to step out of the TARDIS first. They had landed in her house, her living room, but nothing was how she had left it. Dozens of blue and red balloons floated around the room. Colourful decorations were scattered on the furniture, golden bows and little silver paper stars catching the light of the ceiling lamp that had somehow become multi-coloured like a disco ball light. A huge cake with chocolate topping was on the table. On the biggest window, together with bright Christmas lights, was hung a huge banner written in the Doctor's handwriting that read: "HAPPY 28th BIRTHDAY CLARA OSWALD". Clara forgot how to breathe.

The Doctor exited the TARDIS and embraced her from behind.

"Don't tell me you're speechless? 'Cause I've never thought I'd achieve that," he said with a chuckle as he rested his chin on top of her head.

"What- How-" Clara stammered, still trying to remembered how to form words. "When did you do all this? _Why?_ "

"Well, because I'd missed your birthday. And, this morning, while you were in the bathroom."

His I'm-so-clever-and-I-know-it smirk was practically audible in his words.

"You mean-"

"We're in the past, yes." The Doctor spun her around slowly, carefully, so she could face him. "Now," he continued, "we have about 45 minutes before past me starts to clean this whole thing up and past you gets out of the shower, so I propose we start eating that cake, what do you say?"

His eyes and smile were brighter than the stars themselves, the anguish that always seemed to constantly envelope him these days gone for the moment, drowned in that special bond they had of something greater than love. Never defeated, perhaps, only pushed back to a corner of his mind, but Clara still counted it as a triumph.

"I can't. Pregnant, remember?"

"Of course I remember, Clara. _I_ am eating the cake," he said. "But _you_ can blow the candles," he added, as though convinced that that was the biggest honour and the best part of eating a cake.

Clara laughed.

"You're ridiculous, you know that?" she asked, not without tears starting to roll down her cheeks, wrapping her arms around his neck.

"Mmh." As he very rarely did, reliant as he was on her for everything feelings-related, he took the initiative and pressed a chaste but lingering kiss to her lips, gentler than the caresses he reserved for her and sweeter than his improbable coffees. Then, he took out of his pocket a present that wouldn't have fit even in a pocket four times the size of his. "Happy birthday, Clara Oswald."

Clara ran her hands over the red-velvet wrapping, feeling the shape of what was underneath. A book. Definitely a book. Big and squared rather than rectangular, much like her mother's old book '101 places to see' had been, but much heavier. She unwrapped it with one quick move.

"1.001 places to see," the title read.

Clara smiled without even realizing it. The book was beautiful. Perfect. So very clearly hand-made by the Doctor, night blue and TARDIS blue and green and red, his and her favourite colours, written in his handwriting with indelible ink.

' _You like it?'_ he asked, as though surprised that she did.

' _Understatement.'_

"Since you had filled up the other," the Doctor explained.

It had happened way before their separation after Danny's death. She had started writing their adventures on pieces of paper and post-its since then. She wrote everything down, because she never ever wanted to forget one line of it.

"Only 1.001?" she teased. "I will fill this quickly too."

' _Oh, Clara.'_ He pressed her face against his chest and kissed the top of her head, holding her closer, with a new need. "I'll give you another." _'And another. And ten more. And one hundred more for our child. And nothing will separate us ever again.'_

"Doctor…" she started gently.

Even though she hated reminding him of their inevitable separation, he would be much readier when the day eventually would come if he stopped denying it ever would. She didn't know if it would hurt less, but perhaps it would be at least easier to accept then if he started to accept it now.

' _Don't.'_

He needed this, she realized. Needed the illusion that everything would be okay, because even though he tried to hide it from her she knew how the thought of something happening to her or their baby haunted him and tormented him and hardly ever relented its grip on his very soul.

"Help me blow the candles," she proposed.

A little bit of his smile returned, and he nodded.

The Doctor took a chair and Clara sat on his lap, taking his arms and placing them around her, leaning back against his chest and encouraging him to rest his chin on her shoulder. They almost set on fire the flower she kept on the table as they blew her twenty-eight candles together. There was so much smoke in the room that the fire alarm beeped somewhat menacingly and for several long moments neither of them dared to breathe as they waited to see if they were going to get showered by the thingies on the ceiling.

They didn't. After a minute of silently exchanged looks, they started giggling like two middle-schoolers and only managed to stop because the Doctor knew he had little time left to eat the cake and he wasn't going to waste it. The sadness of the moments before blew away with the smoke. Clara alternated laughing at the hurry with which he tried to make the cake disappear in his mouth with licking the chocolate topping of his fingers, which only caused him to giggle again because it apparently made him ticklish -which he categorically denied was possible- and had little pieces of cake land everywhere. They exchanged sloppy kisses that plastered chocolate and cake all over their faces, laughing against each other's lips, and Clara wondered how could there have been a time when they hadn't allowed themselves to have this.


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N:** Sorry about the wait, I was under exams. The next chapter might come slightly late too. Thank you so much for all the kind reviews!

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"In conclusion, your pregnancy is proceeding as smoothly as it possibly could," Doctor Zhabehasetrul said as she turned off the monitor and let Clara sit up on the examination bed. "I have no reason to advise you to stop working or reduce efforts any more than you already did, although I do recommend you to pay attention to your body in the oncoming weeks, after you enter the last sixteen weeks, and take all the rest you deem necessary and avoid all the efforts that seem too taxing. Now, the very last thing: do you wish to know the baby's biological sex?"

"Yes, of course!" "I don't care," said Clara and the Doctor respectively, at the same time.

Much to the Doctor's confusion, Clara turned towards him, all eyes, seemingly astonished.

"Doctor, what the hell are you talking about?" she asked, somewhere between nervous and confused. "What do you mean you don't care?"

The Doctor frowned.

"Well, why would I?"

"Because it's _your child_!" she hissed. "How can you _not_ care?"

The Doctor was silent for a few moments, opening and closing his mouth repeatedly between uncertain gesturing.

"Clara. Honestly. I'm not seeing your point." He blinked a couple of times, rubbed his eyes, just to be sure. "Nope. Not seeing it. Sorry. How is knowing the baby's sex going to affect… _anything_ at all?"

He couldn't understand why the matter could be of any importance. It wasn't like it would change his growing love for their baby or the way he would treat his future child, so why would he care about it?

"Oh, _God_. Yeah. Okay. Fair enough. But we'll need to choose baby clothes and toys and, you know, things like that."

The Doctor blinked again, more puzzled than before.

"I'm confused. Really. What does sex have to do with those?"

Clara hesitated for a long minute, as though considering something she never had before. Eventually, she sighed, shaking her head slightly.

"Alright, good point. But we have to choose the baby's name."

"All Gallifreyan names are unisex, so in case you-"

Clara sighed again in what definitely looked like utter exasperation.

"Right," she interrupted him, "Right. Got it. Just-"

"Clara, it's _fine_ ," he reassured, taking her hand in his. "You want to know, that's okay, you don't have to find justifications. You're curious, I get it. That's very human. I'm a bit curious too, now that I think about it. It's the same to me. We do what you want."

"It's not-" There was more than a hint of a glare in the look she gave him next. "Okay, yes. _Yes_ , I want to know, _okay_?"

His hand left hers as she raised her voice.

"Wait. You're cross. You look cross. Are you cross?"

"Yes! Yes, I _am_ cross, okay? Because you're right and I get it but I still want to know, _what's so wrong with that_?"

"Nothing wrong with knowing," he replied meekly.

Apparently he had done something really idiotic and Clara was cross with him now. He couldn't figure out what exactly he had said to make her this angry, but it seems to happen more often these days, like in the first days after his regeneration. It was as though the equilibrium they had found with each other and that had worked so well for months was slowly breaking apart.

He reached for her hand and for her mind, trying to make her understand he was sorry, even though he didn't know what he had done wrong.

' _I hate it when you're- such a bloody smartarse,'_ came Clara's answer. _'I just- You were being patronising, that's what you were doing. You know I hate it when you do that,'_ she said. _'I know you don't do it on purpose,'_ she continued, sensing his thoughts, _'but it's irritating, okay?'_

The Doctor knew there was something else. She hated when he gave for granted things that weren't so obvious for her, coming off as arrogant or as though he thought he was superior to her, but there was more to their discussions, which had been growing in number in the last weeks and that aroused for increasingly futile reasons. Both he and Clara were tense. He especially was, not sleeping and not eating and always thinking; Clara reacted to his behaviour with more nervousness, more thinking, more worrying. As her belly got rounder and bigger and their baby became more and more real a concept in their minds, the possibility that their child was going to be in danger someday became more real too. It made them both anxious and uneasy, with themselves and with each other.

' _I'm sorry, Clara.'_

' _I know you are.'_

' _Are you still cross with me?'_

' _No, no.'_ She was, he felt. A bit. But she didn't want to be. _'I'm sorry I yelled at you. I'm just-'_

' _I know. We both are.'_

A pause.

' _I still want to know.'_

' _That's okay, Clara. Ask. I want what you want,'_ he said sincerely.

Clara shifted uncomfortably on the examination bed and cleared her throat.

"So- uhm- sorry about that," she said to Doctor Zhabehasetrul. "Ignoring you and all, I mean. Would you, uhm, would you mind telling us?"

Clara's cheeks were flushed with embarrassment and partly with her burst of anger. She wiped the hint of tears in her eyes with her sleeve.

Doctor Zhabehasetrul smiled kindly, seemingly unaffected by the fact neither the Doctor nor Clara had paid the slightest attention to her in the last ten minutes.

"You do not need to feel sorry, you are not the first couple who has ever disagreed on this, and you will not be the last either. Are you certain you want to know now? You can always discuss this further with your partner and contact me later on-"

Clara shook her head.

"No, yes, I'm sure. Please, tell us."

Doctor Zhabehasetrul's smile widened under her rosy trunk.

"You're going to have a beautiful little girl."

Finally, Clara turned to look at him and she was smiling too, suddenly grinning brightly with sparks in her eyes. He smiled automatically in return, happy to make her happy, finally, happy to be doing something right that made Clara smile and not cry.

There was another feeling, however, another kind of happiness, something he hadn't expected at all. A daughter. He liked the idea of having a little girl. A smaller Clara, running around his TARDIS. He couldn't think of anything more _perfect_. The thought filled him up with joy. He felt it bubble up inside him, making him shiver, causing him goose bumps and a series of idiotic little smiles, which he saw through Clara's eyes as she squeezed his hand and his mind reached for hers instinctively.

' _Didn't you say you didn't care?'_ she teased.

' _Shut up,'_ he answered, but he did so fondly, teasing her in turn.

Happiness radiated from Clara, interacting with his own in a chain reaction that plastered ear-to-ear grins on their faces. She was as happy as he was. A piece of him and a piece of her put together in one small, impossible package. Clara had never thought that that might be what she was missing in life. She cupped his face with one hand and pressed a chaste kiss on his lips.

"I want her to be exactly like you," she murmured, only for him to hear.

"But-" he started to protest.

He was hardly a perfect model. He had just demonstrated that he made Clara angry plenty of times. He had many defects and it was scientifically impossible for their daughter to inherit everything from him and nothing from Clara. Besides, he wanted quite opposite…

"Shhh."

She kissed him again, for a longer moment this time but still so very softly. He closed his eyes and forgot what he was thinking about, Clara's lips hot and gentle against his.

~oOo~

Clara and the Doctor said their goodbyes, exiting Doctor Zhabehasetrul's office in the same perception filter disguise they had used the last time and quickly heading back to the TARDIS.

"Can we skip forward to bedtime?" Clara asked, finding her place on his side as he started the engines.

He looked down at her.

"Of course we can, Clara. But- no dinner?"

"Feeling a bit sick now," she explained, leaning against his side as heavily as her light weight made possible. Her sickness had been getting better in the last weeks, striking less often and not as violently, but never quite going away. The Doctor wrapped an arm around her waist, his hand distractedly caressing the side of her bump. "I want a nap."

Most of the things Clara hated most about being pregnant had been fading away after the first sixteen weeks, but some of it still remained, even if it wasn't bothering her as much. She had more energy, more days when she was in a good mood and she would demand a planet or an adventure, which he tried to make as safe as possible for her. She often came back refreshed from their trips, while he was exhausted after constantly looking out for possible danger. If he tolerated a certain -quite high- level of danger for Clara, knowing that she was clever and resourceful and strong, now she had a little defenceless baby inside her and that changed everything for him.

The TARDIS started to dematerialize, returning to Clara's home.

"Naptime it is, then. Will you eat something after that? You shouldn't go without eating."

Clara sighed and caressed his hand over her bump with hers.

"Yes, yes, I know. I will. Let's just go home now, okay?"

The TARDIS landed and the doors opened.

Not ten minutes later the Doctor had changed into pyjama trousers and an old T-shirt and Clara had changed into wearing nothing at all. She slept more comfortably that way lately. He didn't quite approve, still convinced that she shouldn't expose their baby to too much cold, but Clara kept arguing that it was summer and it was more than warm enough. He had soon given up on discussing that, since her body was never less than hot against his skin and he never heard her do so much as sniffle.

Clara lay down on their bed, on her side because now that her bump had grown she woke up with back pains if she slept on her back. He settled on his side behind her, spooning her, wrapping his arms around her, legs entangled with hers, which had become their standard sleeping position when her bump had started to really get big. She often used to spoon _him_ , before that.

Clara covered his hand with hers, moving it to caress her belly in slow circles. Their minds caressed each other in a similar fashion, but there was always that sharp edge of tension between them, that conflict that felt like a constant low-voltage electric shock. He thought about how Clara was over half-way through, only about twenty weeks or possibly less separating them from the moment they would get to know their daughter. And from the moment when danger was likely to start. If someone had wanted this baby to exist, it was because they had plans for her, schemes. His time to uncover them was running out all too rapidly.

"Stay with me?" Clara asked.

The Doctor hesitated. Not because he wasn't tired -he always was these days since he hardly ever slept and even when he did he didn't feel well-rested afterwards- but because he didn't want to lie to her: he had no intention of staying in bed with her for long. He knew he wouldn't be able to sleep and he much preferred spending that time doing something useful, doing what occupied most of his days now: trying to understand who was responsible for Clara's pregnancy.

"Just until I fall asleep," Clara added, interrupting his silence. She paused. "I wish you'd worry less."

He shifted restlessly on top of the mattress behind her.

"Can't."

"I worry enough for the both of us."

He sighed.

"I know."

At first he had been mostly alone in his anxieties, had vowed he wouldn't let Clara see the measure of his concerns in his mind, let her feel his disquiet, but he had been terrible at hiding his emotions. The temptation of the comfort of sharing them with Clara had been too great, and he had let his worries slip bit by bit in her mind. It had perhaps helped him, but it had passed down every negative thought on Clara, who had started worrying just as much, if not more than he did.

She still had a much more positive attitude, inviting her friends and gran and dad over and talking about baby clothes and cots and baby duvets, receiving colourful cards from her students with good wishes and drawings of families with too much white in his hair for his liking. She did some pre-partum exercises alone or forcing him to join her; she read silly books like _'How to become a perfect Mum in 10 easy steps'_ and _'100 things you totally need to know before giving birth'_. She shared with him the funniest or most interesting bits. She tried to lift his spirits and hers and stubbornly pursued her intent of enjoying the fact that they were having a baby, which he could bring himself to only half-heartedly do. And he regretted it in part, yes, but a more rational side of him argued that finding out who wanted to harm them was much more important and was going to possibly save their child's life or more.

"Promise?" Clara asked, interrupting his train of thought.

"What?"

"That you'll stay."

He suppressed a new sigh.

"Yes. I'll stay."

He didn't make promises. He was probably going to slip out of bed as soon as Clara fell asleep. Perhaps return into bed with her just before she could wake up.

His hands kept caressing her belly and her hand alternatively, trying to soothe himself and Clara both, silence extending like an oppressive, heavy cloak of tension and awkwardness around them. Clara's breath was slightly irregular and quickened, her body rigid against his. She was nowhere near falling asleep.

"So," he started, trying to break the silence, "do you want to talk about the baby's name? You said you wanted to talk about it."

Clara turned slowly and carefully in his arms, her huge brown eyes meeting his tired blue ones with uncertain hopefulness in them.

"Yes, I do want to talk about it. Do you? Now?"

"Yes. No. I don't know." He started to torment his thumb with his teeth, nervous. "Now's a time as good as any."

Clara grinned suddenly at him as though she had just discovered something absolutely thrilling.

"Do you have a name in mind already?"

More a plain statement than a question. His mind again conjured the image of a small child, four or five years old, looking exactly like a tinier version of Clara. Not like Clara had looked as a child, because she hadn't looked like herself then: she used to be of average height for her age and with normal-sized eyes and a not-so-funny nose. His daughter was, in his head, the spitting image of Clara, less than half her height, with eyes that threatened to swallow her body whole and a smile that was even more breath-taking than the original.

"I think we should call her Clara," he breathed out, smiling blissfully, his heart aching with the beauty he was able to see. Clara. Clara Jr. Wouldn't that be the perfect name?

He wondered if he was really just imagining or if he was seeing through the layers of time what would truly happen one day. He was rarely able to tell.

"What? That's my name!" Clara exclaimed.

"Exactly." Clara had started giggling uncontrollably. "Why are you laughing?" he asked, baffled. His question was met with more giggling. "What?"

She returned serious now.

"It's _my_ name, she can't have it!"

"Why not? Lots of humans have the name of one of their parents!"

"That's- that's not how it works," she said shaking her head, smiling.

"No?"

"Okay, yes, but I just- That would be just weird," she decided.

She wasn't smiling anymore. She seemed settled on the decision that her name just wouldn't do. He couldn't help but feel disappointed at that.

"Alright. What's your alternative, then?" he asked, not without some annoyance in his voice.

Clara bit her lower lip anxiously just for a second, looking away from him only for her eyes to meet his again, slightly bright.

"Eleanor. Ellie," she murmured.

The Doctor needed a moment to realize.

"Like you mother."

Clara nodded, but avoided his gaze again. He caressed her jawline with his index and middle, for her ear down, lifting her chin so he could look into her eyes.

"Clara. That's perfectly okay."

Clara nodded weakly, pensive. She hesitated for a couple of seconds before asking:

"What about what you said about your people? Could she really change into a man one day?"

"Of course, Clara. You've seen it happen with Missy."

"Yeah, but- not with you."

He scoffed bitterly.

"Me? That's just bad luck."

"What do you mean _'bad luck'_?"

"Well, thirteen version of me and all were pale white, never ginger and never blonde either! I mean, I've been blonde, but not Goldilocks-golden-blonde. That's outrageous. I'd love to be blonde. Or ginger. And I wouldn't mind a bit of a tan, you know? Or a female body for once. It's really _very_ annoying."

Clara laughed at his complaints.

"So you think she needs a Gallifreyan name?" she asked, sounding quite unconvinced. "I'd rather have her have a normal name if we want to raise her on Earth."

Her grimaced, kind of offended by that sentence. "What's not _normal_ with Gallifreyan names?"

"I mean, a _human_ name. So she doesn't… you know, get picked on. And I don't want to have to explain the whys and hows of why we named her- _Asdrubalion_ or something."

The Doctor snorted, then giving her wide eyes and raised eyebrows.

" _Asdrubalion_?" He tried to suffocate a chuckle, with little success. " _Seriously_?"

"Oh, sod off," she said, reaching behind his neck and smacking the back of his head.

" _Ow_ ," he whined, massaging the spot with a grimace. "The Gallifreyan one could be her second name, just in case she needs it."

Clara looked at him sceptically, cocking an eyebrow at him.

"Are there some decent ones?"

"There are some brilliant ones," he said, grinning, a very clever idea making its way in his brain.

"Maybe just the translation of her name?" Clara pondered, "Or one that sounds similar?"

"Cleavin?" he proposed, hopeful.

Clara smiled a _slightly_ terrifying smile.

"That's my name in Gallifreyan, isn't it?" she guessed easily.

Not her name in Gallifreyan. The one that most sounded like hers.

"Caught," he murmured, biting at the tip of his thumb. He wondered if he was about to be slapped again.

"Don't you _ever_ try to fool me again, Doctor," she warned in her best pissed off teacher voice, raising a short but menacing forefinger at him. "I don't want her to have my name," she explained more calmly. "I want her to be her own person." He swallowed hard and nodded, thankful that he hadn't gained a burning, purplish cheek from his tiny little deception. "So," Clara continued, "out with it. Any names for Eleanor?"

"Elevian?"

He didn't know what the origins of the name 'Eleanor' were, or what it meant, so he had gone for a name had an analogous sound, and a name he liked.

Clara smiled slowly, one of those genuine, sweet smiles, those that he cherished the most.

"It's a beautiful name. What is it? Translation or…?"

"No, just sounds similar." _'Sounds beautiful.'_

Like Clara was. Like their daughter was going to be.

' _Thank you. See? You're sweet.'_

He chose not to comment on that. Clara yawned and watched him with sleepy eyes before closing them.

' _Sleep, my Clara,'_ he said, pushing a strand of her hair behind her ear, caressing the top of her head for a moment.

He was going to take care of everything. Of their daughter, of her. He wasn't going to let anything destroy the happiness that they fought every day to maintain.

' _Good night, Doctor.'_

She curled up just a bit tighter against him and he listened to her breath and heart stead, slow down. Her breaths became heavier, her body relaxed. She was of an ethereal, angelic beauty when she slept, so different from the fierce, defiant one she showed during the day. A part of him wanted to keep looking at her like this and never move, sheltered in his little blue box, until the end of the universe.

Reluctant but determined at the same time, he slipped out of bed in complete silence.

~oOo~

The Doctor moved to his study, the door locking itself behind him. He reached for the holographic projector and a four-dimensional map surrounded him, showing the movements in space and time of his most dangerous enemies, from about the time he and Clara had conceived their daughter up until the present moment. Daleks, Cybermen, the Silence, everyone was being secretly spied. The complex tracking system he had constructed added more details and followed their moves in real time, showing it all on the hologram. The Doctor had spent infinite hours studying the map, trying to figure out who out of all those who wanted to harm him in the universe was trying to hurt Clara and their daughter too.

He often wondered if Clara realized that what had been twenty-seven weeks for her had been years for him. Years spent researching, with occasional planet exploring to find new things to show her, to show Clara, who brightened his time alone every fifteen days. He was always back to her in fifteen days exactly, with flawless precision. He couldn't bear to stay away from her a moment longer, not now that they spent most of their time together with their minds entangled with each other, borders non-existent, both of them feeling they were leaving a part of themselves inside the other, a piece of their souls if such thing existed.

On the map, the Daleks slowly conquered a small moon.

The Doctor sighed. All of his enemies seemed to be minding their own business, causing mayhem in the universe as they normally would. Not a Zygon out of place. Not a Sontaran out of line. Nothing indicating that someone was planning something grand for him. Not a stillness in their movements, not a quiet before the storm. Nothing. The Doctor's mind drifted back to where it always did, to the only one who wasn't on the map, because she couldn't be. The Mistress.

Missy couldn't be there, out there in the universe, because she was dead. Killed thankfully not by Clara's hands, and not by his either, which he was secretly oh so relieved of. Sometimes he still wondered if he ever could have found the courage to press the button. He had never wanted her or any of her previous incarnations to die. Just like she did, he wanted to go back. Go back to the time when they used to run together in fields of red grass between trees with silver leaves and they thought they were the same. Now the Doctor often questioned if they had ever been the same at all, and yet he still wished for those times to return. They had been times when neither of them had known sorrow, or regret, or loss. Perhaps he was lost in the illusion that that blessed innocence would have come back if only he had been able to save his friend, to bring his friend back on the right path. But he hadn't. He had failed her, just like he had failed every version of her throughout the centuries.

His mind kept wandering in that painful direction, because he was stubborn: how many times had he left her for dead, only to find himself caught in one of her schemes? Too many, perhaps. Which was why a deep, strong, defiant part of him didn't believe she was dead. Maybe there was another factor too, which was that this seemed to the Doctor exactly her type of crazy, impulse-driven plan with subsequent further and more rational elaboration and scheming. It _had_ to be her.

And yet, she should be dead. He had never been able to track her down, and now was no different. She was nowhere to be found. She was dead. Had to be. He had seen it happen… but he still felt like his instinct wasn't wrong and he was just missing the obvious.

His eyes stopped over the digital clock on the hologram, tickling slowly, one day passing in fifteen days of his time, following Clara's timeline. Time. Time time time. What could he be missing about time?

' _Time Lord, me. Not missing a thing,'_ he told himself.

However, the feeling remained, tight in his chest. Never went away. He spent hours just focusing on that tightness before he finally went back to bed.

~oOo~

The Doctor slipped inside their bedroom and under the sheets as silently as possible, although the mattress dipped under his weight.

He lay down behind Clara, who was lying curled up on her side, not facing the centre of the bed anymore, and wrapped his right arm around her, shuffling closer to her, seeking contact. Her body was oddly tense next to his, as though she were awake, but her breath was calm and controlled and she had seemed asleep when he had entered the room. His mind reached for hers to see if she was sleeping, and he realized she wasn't.

Clara was only pretending to sleep. She had felt him come back to bed, which meant he had been up, and she didn't need to dig deeper in his mind to know what he had been doing out of bed. She could guess just fine. She was pretending to be asleep, and crying inside because she hated to see him torment himself this way.

He retreated respectfully from her thoughts, feeling that she wanted to be left alone. The idea of being the cause of Clara's sadness made _him_ feel sad beyond words. He loosened his grip on her, ready to roll on his side if she didn't want to allow the contact, but Clara grabbed his arm tightly, keeping it in place, and curled up in a smaller ball.

Under his hand, inside Clara, for the first time he felt his baby kick. Not too hard, so he wondered if Clara had felt it at all. She gave no sound or sign that she had. The Doctor couldn't help but wonder if the little one was just making her presence felt or if she too, like Clara, became physical when it came to anger and this was her way to scold him for neglecting her mother.

The Doctor didn't want to think about the answer. He slipped again in Clara's mind only to force both Clara and himself to sleep, allowing both of them a few hours of tranquillity.


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N:** Sorry about the long wait, it has been a very rough period for me with anxiety and all. I hope you enjoy the chapter!

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The Doctor struggled to keep up with Clara. Feeling relatively well and with quite a lot of energy, she had started to prepare everything they were going to need for the baby, so they wouldn't be caught off-guard when the little one was born. He supposed this was a good thing, because it meant Clara had no doubts that their daughter would come into the world healthy and safe without complications. She had no reason to think otherwise obviously, but the Doctor found that the thought of something going wrong with her pregnancy surely haunted _him_ , late at night when his many other concerns decided he wasn't feeling troubled enough.

What he hadn't considered was that Clara would be fully against the TARDIS producing for them everything they might need and was instead bent on buying most of it. The Doctor liked the idea well enough, enjoying seeing Clara excited and enthusiastic about something and mostly carefree, until he discovered how dull going baby things shopping could be.

For instance, she barely let him choose anything regarding clothing, going for awfully warm full-body thingies with shirt and trousers and socks all together in one piece, with no pockets and of colours going from light pink and light yellow to light green, light blue and, finally, white. Where were several layers of clothes? What if the baby felt too warm, wrapped up in that one-piece thing? Why not choose good colours, like dark blue or bright red or purple? And no pockets. Why no pockets? That was just impractical. Clara argued that babies did not need pockets, that they needed to stay warm and that they didn't have preferences in colours. The Doctor wasn't convinced, so Clara agreed they would have the TARDIS get them some clothes of his liking, affirming that that way he'd at least stop sulking. He did no such thing as sulking, he protested. At all. Ever.

It was a constant allowing and prohibiting. Yes, they could keep his cot from when he was born. No, he couldn't build a mini sonic screwdriver for their daughter to play with -he built it anyway-. Yes, he would need to change diapers like everyone else. No to going for dangerous adventures for a _long_ while. Yes to having the TARDIS create the room that was going to be Ellie's.

The process was simple, really. They only needed to choose a place for the door and the TARDIS would create the room from what was in their minds.

The Doctor and Clara stood in the corridor, facing the wall opposite to their bedroom door, so they could sleep as close as possible to the baby. The Doctor started picturing his daughter's room in his mind, thinking of deep blues and reds, a big room with stars and galaxies moving on the ceiling and hundreds of toys scattered everywhere. Clara on the other hand imagined light pink and lighter blue, a small room bathed in sunlight furnished with everything needed to take care of their child, a few stuffed animals sitting on the shelves together with little books made of improbable materials.

"What happens now?" Clara asked.

The Doctor smiled knowingly at her, certain that the TARDIS would favour his vision rather than Clara's.

"Well, we have a look at it."

He opened the door for her. A familiar human door, white, with a golden bow just above golden letters that read ' _Eleanor Elevian Oswald_ ' in both English and Gallifreyan alphabets.

Clara entered the room first and the Doctor followed suit.

The room was nothing like he had expected. It was better.

A dark blue night sky complete with stars began on the eastern wall (was there an east in the Time Vortex?), right from floor level, and gradually shifted to a slightly lighter colour, losing the stars only to give into the oranges and reds of a stunning sunset. The sky continued with lighter and lighter blues on the domed ceiling and the wall the Doctor was facing, turning into the bright sky of a midsummer day, decorated with birds and fantastic winged creatures flying in unpredictable patterns. Moons and planets were just barely visible in the clear sky free of clouds. Reaching the western wall, the colours slipped morbidly into the gentle pinks of dawn before fading back into darker blues and rising -setting?- stars. Every sun and star was secretly a source of light and heat, and the room seemed to vibrate with the warmth of it, so natural and yet artificial. It was perfect.

The Doctor stood open-mouthed with Clara's hand in his. He didn't recognise the alien system of two suns pursuing each other in an eternal dance, but it reminded him of Gallifrey and it moved something deep inside of him. He exhaled an uncertain breath as he took in the rest of the room: his cot, supplies for every need of a baby, infinite colourful toys neatly stored in even more colourful big boxes that the Doctor had no doubt were bigger on the inside, a huge bookshelf where every children's book had been moved from the library in its best illustrated edition. He felt Clara's emotion and approval through their always-linked minds, and he squeezed her hand in response.

"It's amazing. Perfect," she murmured, turning towards him with bright eyes and a brighter smile.

She pressed a tender kiss to his lips. He wrapped his arms around her. Her bump kept growing. Their baby kicked as Clara's belly pressed against the Doctor's body. Clara giggled and the Doctor smiled in the kiss, wondering if the kick was out of approval. He liked to think it was.

~oOo~

As the second part of Clara's pregnancy reached its end and the final sixteen weeks took its place, the Doctor realized just how blessed a time that had been. Clara had felt better, stronger, more active. That all rapidly ended. He was in awe of their child growing inside her, the changes in her body, but Clara almost suddenly started to feel tired, everything became hard to do. The weight she had to carry didn't do any good to her back, so she was constantly sore and constantly complaining about it.

The Doctor had always thought _he_ was the complaining one, but now the roles were inverted, so he was trying his best to make Clara feel better. Even though medication was out of question, since he didn't want to risk anything bad happening to the baby, he could still give Clara a massage, make her fall asleep when she thought it impossible, bring her in the calmer space of his mind where there was no pain. Taking care of Clara, together with the excitement for the baby's imminent arrival that was inexorably gripping him tight, made it so that he was spending less and less time trying to discover who was menacing them. At this point, he didn't know whether worrying less was a good or a bad thing anymore.

The first half of October came and went, together with the date that meant forty weeks had passed and their baby would be relatively safe now, even in case she would come into the world prematurely. The Doctor felt like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

It was a short period of relief before things could start worrying him again: if what bothered Clara the most was her pain -which was definitely a legitimate thing to be bothered about, the Doctor decided- what left him speechless was how she was changing as the weeks flew by. He had seen her change physically, yes, but he had seen nothing but beauty in it. This was different: Clara grew anxious in a way he had never seen. She rarely felt like going on adventures or leaving home at all. She preferred to stay in the TARDIS, saying she felt safer. The lust for adrenaline she used to have seemed gone. She wanted him close, in sight at all times, insisted he slept with her and held her close -which he honestly could not bring himself to complain about- and almost begged him to stop travelling on his own. The Doctor had never seen her like this, so vulnerable and almost… scared. It terrified him. Clara's strength was, and always had been, the primary source of his.

Now Clara would very often wake him in the middle of the night to talk, asking for reassurance, sometimes even just making sure he was there and not in his study, so he thought nothing of it when one night she gripped his wrist tight, waking him abruptly. She had gone to bed with a bad backache earlier: perhaps she couldn't sleep. His mind fell into hers automatically at the physical contact, out of habit, only to feel suddenly drowned in pain and utter panic. He felt like suffocating. He separated their minds immediately with a gasp, but some of the pain stuck with him. Pain at his wrist, Clara's grip steel-tight and her fingernails digging into his sensitive skin.

"Clara?" he winced.

She sat on the bed, sheets pushed aside, looking down at herself in a puzzling mix of horror and realization. There was a small wet patch on the mattress, gradually widening thanks to a slow drip down her thighs.

"I- I-" she stammered, looking up at him with eyes wider than he'd ever seen. "Baby. Coming. _Now_."

The Doctor's brain needed a moment to register the information. A long moment when the world seemed to freeze and narrow down to the expression in Clara's eyes, silently begging him to understand.

"What- oh. _Oh._ "

The world spun on its axis.

"Yes!"

"Baby! Coming!"

He might be panicking. Slightly. Just a bit.

" _Yes!_ "

" _Now?!_ "

"Doctor, _get off your bloody arse_ and take me to the _bloody_ doctor, _NOW_!"

The Doctor tumbled out of bed so quickly he tripped in the sheets, banged his head on the floor falling and then hit it again against the doorframe as he staggered out of the room.

~oOo~

" _Doctor?" Clara asked, one of the many times she woke him in the middle of the night those days._

" _Mmh?" He turned towards her only half-awake, but attentive, as he always listened to what Clara had to say._

" _When the baby comes… and I mean when I'm- actually giving birth… I don't want you to… well, I don't think I want you there."_

 _That woke him just fine._

" _What do you mean?"_

 _The resolve on her face was clear. She was deadly serious about it._

" _I mean… I'm going to be screaming. I guess. Probably. Crying. I-" she stopped, but he could still read her thoughts. 'I don't want you to see me like that.'_

 _The Doctor could see it in her face. She had given this thought, and it was really important to her. Yet, he couldn't understand it._

" _Clara, my Clara, do you think I would think any less of you if I-"_

" _It's not about you!" she interrupted, eyes locked with his. "It's about me. I just- you can't see me like that."_

 _She let her thoughts flow into his. He could not see her that weak, that vulnerable. He just- couldn't. She couldn't allow it. It was already hard enough for her to let him see those thoughts. The Doctor could understand that. Much like he had done very often in his life, Clara had built up a wall strength and bravery and confidence between herself and the rest of the world, to protect a piece of her deep inside that someone, something had broken._

" _Clara…"_

 _He didn't know any better than offer his understanding. Suddenly, Clara's request didn't seem so absurd._

" _Please."_

" _Anything you want," he whispered, soothing her, caressing her hair and tugging her mind and her body closer to his._

~oOo~

Out. He was out. Out of the room where Clara was giving birth. Out of her mind, unable to calm her, to reassure her, to lessen her pain. He found unacceptable that she should go through that kind of suffering alone. And she _was_ suffering: he could hear her scream. The walls of Doctor Zhabehasetrul's clinic were supposed to be sound-proofed, but no species in that galaxy had quite his earing, so he could hear something. Not everything. _Just_ the very worst of it. He was angry beyond belief at himself for agreeing with Clara when she had intimated him to shut up, go fetch her dad and gran and _wait_. There weren't a lot of things the Doctor hated as much as waiting, if anything because he wasn't used to it. Usually he just fast-forwarded to when he wanted to go.

"How long has she been in there?" Clara's father asked almost timidly, as though afraid the Doctor might just go off like an atomic bomb. The Doctor had to admit, only with his pyjamas on, bed hair, gritting his teeth in apprehension and compulsively tapping his right foot on the floor at a speed approximately three times that possible for a human, well, he must have looked quite a fright.

"2 hours, 33 minutes, 15 seconds, 3 deciseconds, 20 centiseconds and 7 milliseconds. And counting," the Doctor answered briskly. He kept counting. It was keeping him sane. Or maybe not, hard to say.

"Uh. That's… very precise," Dave Oswald muttered. Clara's gran had decided not to come since she was too old to wait hours on an uncomfortable hospital chair, and she could always see the baby when they brought her home in a couple of days. Dave had come, though, much to Linda's badly concealed disappointment.

"Time Lord," the Doctor answered automatically.

Another scream, the loudest so far. He'd kept track of the decibels. Then, silence, at least for what he could hear, until something obliterated every other auditory, olfactory, visual and tactile stimulus, and even his own thoughts. Loud and clear, like it was the only thing his brain was able to register as relevant, was the sound of a crying baby.

The Doctor didn't remember getting up of the chair, or walking to the doors. He slammed them open so forcefully they were flung out of their hinges. That had to have made a noise. He didn't hear it.

~oOo~

"Give her to me," the Doctor ordered plainly, taking his crying daughter from Doctor Zhabehasetrul's arms as she was cleaning and drying the baby. "Shhh. Here. Daddy's here," he murmured to his baby, _his and Clara's baby_ , taking her in his arms and against his chest.

Everyone wondered why babies came into the world crying. The Doctor knew. They were more or less suddenly tore out of a hot, familiar, secure place, the only place they'd ever known, and pushed into somewhere completely new, could and unknown, full of smells and noises and a million new sensations all at once. It was terrifying.

The Doctor cleared his mind of every negative thought that could damage the baby, letting it fill instead with the happiness of holding her for the first time and the grounding feeling that he would keep her _safe_. The baby stopped crying. He had done it all on instinct, pure primal instinct at the sound of his baby crying to be consoled. He looked down at her for the first time, feeling his hearts skip a beat and his breath hitch. She was small. Incredibly small. He didn't remember babies being so small. He could easily have held her with one arm if he weren't absolutely terrified of letting go of her even if just partially. She was warm, not as warm as Clara but not as cool as him either. She was the exact miniature of a human, down to her hands and fingertips and fingernails. All perfectly formed. The only difference was the steady beat of two hearts in her little chest. A tiny bow of a mouth -this face's mouth, he reckoned- was just learning how to breathe. The baby wailed something like a sigh, eyes still closed, and buried her tiny head into his chest, short dark hair tickling him through his shirt. The Doctor realized dimly that she was learning this new world right under his eyes. She exhaled through her nose -a nose with an undetermined something funny about it just like Clara's- then took in his scent as her mind reached instinctively for his. He felt her make her first connections, constructing the idea of him, of _Dad_. Just the feel of that in his mind had his throat go dry.

' _Gods, you're perfect,'_ was the thought that filled his mind and pushed everything aside. She was his daughter and she was perfect.

Her eyes that had never seen light before pried open just barely, just enough for him to notice, and their gazes met. The Doctor knew she was seeing him. Not him really, something pale pink and something grey, but he felt the connection as they stared into each other's eyes for a long moment. It reminded him of the first time these eyes had met Clara's, not just because how similar his expression had to be just then, but because he felt it, the bond of being the first face his daughter saw, and because he instantly, involuntarily, abruptly fell in love in the space of a few interminable seconds.

"Oh," was all that could escape through his lips of all the emotion he was experiencing inside.

"Doctor."

Clara's voice shook him from his awe, and he immediately turned towards the sound. He was greeted by tired eyes that possessed a new light.

"Clara." He felt himself grin spontaneously. "We made this baby," he said idly, shifting his eyes from his daughter to her mother and back.

He automatically stepped towards Clara and she stretched out her arms to hold her daughter. The Doctor saw Clara wear an expression of such tenderness, unlike any he'd ever seen in her eyes, that seemed to melt something inside him. He sat on the bed next to Clara and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, resting his head on hers, inhaling the scent of her hair and her sweat and the new scent of their baby, trying to imprint that instant in his memory.

"My Clara. You've been so good. You're perfect."

Clara rubbed her forehead against his head affectionately, letting him sense the haze of tiredness and joy she was wrapped up in just then, seeking the comfort of his mind and his own happiness as she held their daughter to her chest.

"You should try to feed her," Doctor Zhabehasetrul said gently. "It may be that nothing comes out just yet, but it will help your body to know your baby is born and needs to be fed."

The other doctor didn't intrude more than she should have in their moment, just showed Clara what she was supposed to do even though Clara seemed to already have a pretty clear idea. She winced in discomfort at first when the baby latched to her breast, then her expression turned into one of surprise.

"Doctor. _She's in my head_."

"It's instinctive for a Gallifreyan. She needs it to develop her telepathic skills correctly," he explained, speaking softly into Clara's soft hair, watching his daughter drink avidly if a bit messily. He prayed to no one in particular that she didn't have his appetite, or Clara would never let him live that down.

"What should I do?" Clara asked with slight panic in her voice, her eyes not leaving her daughter.

"Well, just say hi," he chuckled.

"Hi," Clara murmured. "Hi, Ellie."

Clara's voice broke into a giggle, and she looked up at him with bright eyes before looking down at Ellie again.

The Doctor watched his girls, his Clara and their daughter, and felt a fierce wave of pride and strength hit him. He wasn't going to let anything hurt either of them. _Ever_.


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N:** I know, it took me ages to update again. The issue is still the same, anxiety and exams. I think I'm getting better though. I hope you enjoy the chapter :) Just a bit of fluff before shit starts to go down… prepare for the grand finale!

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"Are you going to camp here all night? She's not going to grow up overnight, you know," Clara said fondly, stepping towards the Doctor and wrapping her arms around him from behind, letting her forehead rest against his shoulder as he remained bent over Ellie's cot in the TARDIS, gaze fixed on the little girl ever since they'd brought her home earlier that day after the two usual post-partum days at the clinic.

The Doctor glanced at Clara just with the corner of his eye for a brief moment.

"I want to see her eyes."

"Okay, _that_ might change. My eyes were grey until I was about three weeks old."

"Not for a Gallifreyan. They won't change."

"I've seen her eyes for a bit. They're dark."

"Well, I haven't!" the Doctor said with childish indignation.

Clara moved to his side, leaving one arm around him and resting the other over his, tangling their fingers as her hand slid in his.

"She's sleeping now, you'll have to wait anyway, right? I bet she's going to start keeping them open soon enough, you'll have all the time in the world to find out, Doctor." He made a non-committal noise and didn't shift his gaze. "What's the big deal with it anyway?" Clara asked, eyeing him suspiciously.

"Your eyes."

"What about them?"

"I want to know if she has your eyes," he answered, turning to face her. "Hate not knowing."

Clara regarded their daughter ( _their_ daughter, hers and the Doctor's, she still had trouble processing that), thinking. Ellie was a very pretty baby girl. From the start, she hadn't been all wrinkly and red-faced or tending to purple like most newborns. Clara guessed she would have lighter skin, like the Doctor. Her mouth was very much his, thin, delicate lips impossibly soft to the touch. Her hair was too short still to tell if it was going to be straight or curly, though the tips had a hint of a curve. Then again, a lot of babies had curls in their first years of life, but somehow Clara could just tell. She knew how the Doctor's hair felt under her palms, and Ellie's felt just the same.

"She's your spitting image. It's only fair she gets my eyes," Clara concluded with a smile.

"That's not true. She has your nose."

Clara laughed. "How can you tell?"

"It's funny."

"What?"

"Her nose. Your nose- _ah!_ "

The Doctor pretended to wince as Clara smacked him lightly on the back of his head, but he was still grinning.

They watched their daughter in silence for a few more minutes, watching her little chest rise and fall as she slept. Clara already felt a deep, deep love for Ellie. Clichéd as it might sound, Ellie was the living, breathing result of Clara's love for the Doctor, and his for her, and literally a new person half Doctor and half Clara. It was a different kind of love from the one she felt for the Doctor, not as vicious and all-consuming, more gentle and caring, but just as fiercely protective and intense.

"Come to bed," Clara murmured, nuzzling her temple against his and feeling him connect their minds. He was happy, ecstatic, she could tell. Yet he watched their daughter as though she could be taken from him any second now. "It's okay, Doctor. She's going to be okay. We're all gonna be okay, I promise," she reassured gently.

"Oh, Clara. Don't make promises you can't keep," he crooked, meeting her gaze.

"It'll be fine. I'm not going to let anything happen to my baby. And neither are you. Come to bed."

She pressed a kiss to the corner of his lips and caressed his curls fondly, then firmly tugged at his hand. In her mind, she felt him surrender, felt the tension leave his body just a little as he let himself be pulled towards her and into their bedroom.

"It's all okay," she whispered in his hair as she lay behind him, her arms wrapped around his torso and his hands clasped over hers.

~oOo~

Ellie grew, and everything was peaceful. It felt like the calm before the storm, however, with the Doctor always, always watchful as the weeks passed and tension seeping through their linked minds and keeping Clara herself awake. Her sleep schedule went to hell anyway as Ellie needed to be fed several times during the night too. Clara counted it as a blessing that the little girl was rapidly starting to wake less and less during the night -Clara thanked her unbendable rules about feeding times and nap times and play times for that.

Ellie picked up weight much like a human baby, but it was evident that she was already much stronger and more intelligent than any baby her age. At less than three months she could already sit without any help and watch the world from over the edge of the Doctor's old cot with her big brown eyes -the Doctor had been happier than Clara had seen him in months for days and days after Ellie had started keeping her eyes open. Pretty early on Ellie already had different sounds for "Mum" and "Daddy", the first sounding more like "aaah" and the second more like "ah-heee". Clara wanted her to properly say "Mum" first. It was like a vicious necessity. No way she was letting her say "Dad" first. She was going to train her when the Doctor wasn't watching. Maybe. Somehow. Someway.

The Doctor absolutely adored Ellie. He was completely in love with her, which made Clara almost kind of jealous, deep down. The Doctor and Ellie had so much in common, literally in everything. Same species. Same telepathy. Same eyes that devoured information at a frightening rate. They had epic staring contests -won by the Doctor only because Ellie fell asleep eventually- where they would look into each other's eyes, immobile, as though the other's irises held all the secrets of the universe. The Doctor held her, played with her, had her sleep in his arms as if they were two halves of the same whole. Clara thought of when she used to think she and the Doctor were one soul in two bodies and she started to feel sad and cry for no reason. He would then pull her in his arms and bathe her in his feelings for her, and Clara would know nothing had changed. He loved his girls equally, just as she loved him and Ellie.

After Ellie turned three months old, she started to sleep through the night. Clara did a happy little dance when she woke up that morning and realized she hadn't had to get up. The Doctor laughed, throwing his head back against the pillow. Clara hadn't heard him laugh like that in, oh, ages. She pulled him into a kiss and then another, kissing and laughing until the noise woke their little girl.

Sleeping the whole night gave Clara her strength back, her lucidity. No constant tiredness, no hazy eyes, no exhaustion, no sudden bursts of depression. In a week, her sleep schedule was fixing itself.

After a week, she had Ellie changed, fed, burped and put to bed. Clara flung herself to bed too… and she didn't fall asleep instantly. It was 8:37 pm and she wasn't sleepy. She suddenly asked herself how long it had been since she'd last had a moment to herself. Read a book. Cuddled and kissed with the Doctor until they fell asleep. She had been so busy with Ellie that she hadn't noticed how bad she had been missing those things.

The Doctor silently closed the door of their bedroom, just back from kissing Ellie goodnight and tucking her in again in case Clara hadn't already done it perfectly -she had. He shrugged off his t-shirt and remained shirtless and barefoot with only his pyjama trousers on. Clara remembered all of a sudden what that sight used to make her feel.

"You're still awake," he noted with a smile.

"Yep," she said, watching him as he slipped into bed, his messy hair and 12-hours stubble, his lean and dry muscles that hid his superhuman strength.

He lay under the covers, watching her in turn, his head resting on his hand as he propped himself up on one elbow.

"Your eyes are doing a thing."

"I missed you."

"I missed you too." A pause and a smug smile. "We've been apart for less than two minutes."

Clara sighed. "No, I…" She placed her hand flat against his chest and pushed so he was lying on his back, then tentatively pulled herself up and placed her knees either side of him, slowly, testing the movement. The Doctor inhaled sharply and Clara saw his pupils dilate. She gave into a gasp of her own at the sight. Oh, she had missed this. "Let's make love."

The Doctor blushed, in that absurdly hot way of his.

"Are you sure?" he whispered, hopefulness and need and respect and concern in his voice all at the same time.

Clara bent down further, taking in his scent, watching him lick his lips and breathe faster, his body shifting restlessly. He was just as affected as the first day and oh, Clara revelled in that. Yeah, she was sure, all the way sure. The pains and discomforts of post-partum times had gone away, the Doctor looked just as perfect as the day she'd known she loved him and her body wanted it all. How had she gone almost a year without this? Her body wanted payback, right this instant, it remembered every heated touch and every broken sigh and wanted it all back.

"Yeah. I want you," she said, and her voice had gone rough.

Clara leaned in to kiss him, hesitantly at first, then harder, more demanding, swallowing the sounds he was making into her mouth. She was getting some sort of influence on the connection of their minds and she used it, pulling him hard and fast in her want, her need, feeling it matched by his own passion. He moaned softly as he pulled her close, chest to chest with him, then fought to get her nightgown off and his hands on every reachable inch of her skin, making her shudder and whimper under his touch as his elegant, long fingers remembered every sensitive spot, her breasts, her hips, the small of her back. His mouth worked wonders as he kissed her as though he needed her lips like air and water and he was frantic in how he held onto her.

"Oh, Clara. Clara, Clara, Clara. I missed you too," he murmured as she gasped for breath.

The Doctor pushed her with her back on the mattress again, ending up in an odd position across the bed, but Clara didn't care. He buried his nose into her neck, hoping to get drunk in her scent, lavishing her neck with his mouth and tongue until she was moaning his name and smiling, smiling out of pure joy because she had forgotten how there was nothing better than their bodies pressed together so closely. She threw her head back in satisfaction as she felt him hard in his trousers, thrusting pliantly against her stomach. She moved one of her hands between them to give in to the irresistible urge to touch him, feel him warm and solid and hear him groan and plead her name, and moved her other hand to catch his own and guide it between her legs where her body was screaming for his touch. She bit her lip when his fingers brushed against her clit and she would have issued words of more and please and yes if her phone hadn't started to ring.

"Don't answer," the Doctor outright pleaded as he mouthed her breasts gently, careful as she was still feeding Ellie after all.

"Wasn't planning to."

Clara dipped her hand into the Doctor's trousers, had a greedy feel of him before freezing, closely followed by the Doctor.

The phone was still ringing. Ellie was crying, because the noise had woken her.

"Oh, _God_ ," Clara groaned.

The Doctor shuddered, eyes closed. He reopened them slowly, drawing a calming breath through the sole force of will and grabbing her hand delicately, pulling it out of his trousers, his whole body shivering. Clara could feel how reluctantly, almost painfully he was doing so. She couldn't help a smile at the knowledge that she could still reduce him to this, to feeling and needing and wanting and no thinking. He met her eyes, and his were of the clearest blue. He kissed her hand and patted it lovingly.

"My turn to get her," he sighed.

The Doctor got up.

Clara stifled a groan of frustration into her pillow.

Later, much later, the Doctor came back with Ellie in his arms, still awake and unwilling to go back to sleep. He settled the baby on the mattress between them and lay on his side, facing Clara, foreheads touching and their legs entangled so their daughter was safely tucked in the small fort built by their bodies. Ellie made a happy noise at the arrangement and shifted to touch both of their hands, pouring the purest, unconditional form of love on them, and Clara wondered if they weren't just perfectly safe, each with the two people they loved most, all wrapped in a gentle embrace and a chain of mentally shared affection. Clara thought no one would try to pull them apart. Surely, Ellie's birth had been nothing but a gift, a little mistake on the part of nature and Clara and the Doctor could raise her free of fears for many years to come. She fell asleep on that thought.

~oOo~

The Doctor sat on the floor of his study in the TARDIS, worrying his fingers between his teeth. It had pained him to do so, but he had had to start taking trips alone again. Clara was unhappy about it, but she didn't know what he knew.

Ellie was almost six months old, and Clara didn't know how important a mark that was for a Gallifreyan. Ellie would learn to walk and to control her telepathy, she would develop long-term memory. All in a matter of weeks. It was the ideal moment for those who were plotting against them to snatch her from her parents' arms and shape her to their own will.

The thought terrified him, and he was running out of time. Funny how it always came back to that, to Time. He knew it held the answer to the final problem, _the_ problem, the identity of those who wanted them harm… that was the only thing he knew, together with the unshakable sensation that the Mistress was somehow involved. And she couldn't, _she couldn't_ , he told himself. She was dead, he'd seen her die, the fact he associated her with Time because she was a Time Lady meant noth-

"She's a _Time Lady_!" he exclaimed, getting up abruptly from the floor. "Time Lords _time travel_! Even if she's dead, it means nothing! A past version of her is the one who made it so Clara could have Ellie! Oh, God, she's unbelievable, she's terrifying, she's… _a genius_ -" He froze and his throat went dry when he realized Missy's plan. "Clara," he whispered. " _Ellie_."

He bolted out of the room and through the corridors, as fast as his legs could take him. Clara and Ellie were in danger, and he had left them _alone_. Deep down, he knew how big his mistake had been. He slammed open the doors of the console room with one knowledge in mind:

' _I'm already too late.'_


	11. Chapter 11

Clara stood in front of her daughter, gently tugging the little girl on her feet by the hands. Ellie giggled.

"Yeah, it's nice to be up, right?" Clara said. "Want to make Daddy jealous? We can learn to walk like grown-ups while he's away being a spoilsport, yeah? Yes, yes we will, won't we?"

The Doctor had begun to take longer trips with the TARDIS again, but no matter how long he stayed away he was always back before Ellie could wake up. Clara was starting to worry, since he was running so late.

Clara smiled, tickling Ellie as she talked, just to hear her giggle again and see her smile. Ellie fell back on the fuzzy blanked Clara had laid down together with toys and pillows and her eyes met Clara's: in all her six months of life, Ellie's eyes had only become more and more aware, intelligent, attentive. Clara knew the girl probably already had an IQ higher than hers, but her eyes were just proof of that. They weren't the blissfully unaware, happy eyes she'd seen in kids Ellie's age. It was evident that Ellie just knew _more_.

"Do we want to try one more time?" Clara asked, glancing at the phone she'd adjusted on the shelf to film Ellie's first time walking. "Don't think I don't know you're ready to walk and are just making fun of me trying everything I know to make you."

Ellie's mouth opened in a big O, then she covered it with her hands, brown eyes wide.

"Oooh, gotcha!" Clara cheered. "I _knew_ it!"

"Aaah!" Ellie exclaimed in what was probably indignation, judging by the way she was the spitting image of the Doctor's indignant face.

"Mum's smarter than you think, you little… Dalek!"

Clara reached out to playfully catch Ellie and trap her in a hug, but the girl was faster: Ellie got up lightning-fast and ran just out of Clara's reach. Ran. Stumbling, yeah. Almost falling, sure. But she ran.

"I did it!"

Clara grinned. Ellie stopped dead on her tracks, turned to face Clara, looked at her feet, then back at Clara. Her mouth became O-shaped again.

"Ah!" Ellie said, offended that Clara had managed to make her walk with a trick.

"Caught," Clara said, feeling very proud of herself. "C-A-U-G-H-T," she spelled out smugly.

"Buh!" Ellie stated crossly, sitting down and grabbing the nearest toy as if it were the most interesting thing in the world.

Clara saved the video to show to the Doctor later and was about to go console her daughter's wounded pride when the doorbell rang.

"Stay here like a good girl, Ellie, okay? I'll just check who's at the door. Maybe it's Grand-Gran, eh? You'd like that?"

Her family would have phoned before coming over, though. Weird. Perhaps it was actually just the mailman. Or Courtney. She came over sometimes. She seemed to like kids, but most of all she seemed to miss Clara as her teacher. Clara smiled at the thought and aimed for the front door.

"Aaah?" Ellie called.

"Mum is just going to answer the door. Three steps away. Watch me," Clara assured.

Ellie got up to watch. She seemed worried for some reason. Perhaps Clara left her alone too little and she was starting to get fussy whenever they were inches apart.

Clara went to open the door and turned the doorknob, but to her surprise there was no-one there. Instinctively, she looked down: on the steps outside someone had left a purple envelope with "to the neo-parents" written on it in a flowery, heavily tilted handwriting. Okay, very late "congrats on your baby" card, then. Clara opened the envelope.

It contained a very colourful card with a cartoon-styled reddish-purple baby devil on yellow background printed on it, complete with pointy tail and horns, diaper and a rubber dummy in its mouth. "Good luck with your little devil!" was written in big round red letters around the picture.

Clara laughed softly. Ringing the bell, running away and ridiculous card? Definitely Courtney's style. Clara opened the card to see if it was signed.

The card fell from her hands as the world seemed to slow down and stop spinning.

The signature read, in blood-red pen,

 _With love (not really),_

 _the Mistress. xoxo_

"So, what do you think of the makeover?" a female voice with a Scottish accent asked, freezing the blood in Clara's veins. "Not that you've ever met the old me, but I bet _he_ told you _aaall_ about me." Clara turned slowly, so many emotions inside her she could barely distinguish them. Fear, anger, _desire for revenge_. They all melted into horror when she finally faced Missy and saw that the Time Lady was holding Ellie tight in her arms. Clara felt like air had been punched out of her lungs.

"Seriously," Missy continued, "is it too evil-Mary-Poppins? I'm not sure I wanted to go for that. Didn't want to go all the way Maleficent either, though. See, _that's_ the problem with the Big Golden Boom, you don't know yourself, y'know?" She spoke as though to a comrade, as though they were bloody _mates_. Clara was shaking with anger. "I'm never sure about anything after regeneration. And _boy_ what a ride this one was! I'm not really sure about the missing body parts and acquired ones yet, if you know what I mean. Gods, it _is_ good to talk to another person again! Not that you're an actual _person_ , mind you. More like… a pet ape or something. And don't get me started on the accent-"

"Let go of my daughter. _Now_." Clara wanted to sound threatening, but her voice was shaking, shaking, _shaking_ , with rage and fear, no, God, no. Actual _terror_ at the thought of any harm coming to Ellie…

"Or what?" Missy taunted, smiling a false smile and bouncing Ellie in her arms as the child started crying, feeling something was horribly wrong. "You'll punch me with your weak human hands? I could break your wrist with three fingers, darlin'." She paused, lost in thought for a second. "Or I could break hers, what do you say?" she asked, a dangerous spark in her eyes, pointing to Ellie.

" _No!_ " Clara yelled before she could tell herself to stay in control of the situation. "Don't hurt her. Please don't hurt her."

"Oh, Clara, my Clara. I just knew we'd reach an accord," Missy laughed darkly, stroking Ellie's wayward curls.

"Don't touch her!" Clara screamed. Her feelings were too raw, too intense. Control, which she tried to maintain at all times, was slipping from her hands by the second.

"Bit late for that," Missy said, pinching one of Ellie's cheeks.

Clara felt tears start to run down her cheeks. "Why are you doing this?"

"Why, because I came to take back what's mine, obviously. This little Gallifreyan here is _my_ doing. You took decent care of it, I'll give you that, but now I want my toy all for myself. And the Doctor, of course."

"It was _you_!" Clara spat.

"Who made sure the dear Doctor could get you up the duff? Oh, aye, all me. Queen of genetic engineering," she said, winking and making a vague, self-acclaiming gesture. "Can't for the lives of me get how neither of you figured it out till now."

"I won't let you take her," Clara hissed.

"You don't have a way to stop me, Clara. Be reasonable, I know you're smarter than that."

"The Doctor will stop you."

"The Doctor will get here too late, I made sure of that. Poor dear, that's all he seems to be able to do, isn't it?"

"He'll find you," Clara swore on behalf of the Doctor.

Missy did an exaggerated confused expression.

"You seem to be under the misconception that I don't want him to find me. But that's _exactly_ what I want. He'll find you here, crying your pretty little eyes out, and he'll come right after me without you, because he wouldn't want to put his fragile tiny human pet in danger, would he? Once you're apart and he's alone with me, convince him to ditch you for me will be a piece of cake."

"He'd never-"

"He'd never what? Leave you?" Missy asked in a mocking tone. "You'll be together _for-evah_ and _in luv_? That's what you think? Because last time I checked you had a handful of decades and he had all of eternity. Surely he'll see that his heart is safer in my hands… that this girl should grow up with those of her own species."

"I'm her mother!"

"I made you, Clara. I shaped you every step of the way since you met the Doctor, made sure you met him, made sure you'd be the perfect match for him. And through you I made this baby, for me and the Doctor to keep. You, Clara, were just a surrogate. You both are my toys to play with as I please."

The satisfaction and the will to destroy her emotionally, assassinate her certainties were evident in the Mistress voice.

And Clara would almost have believed her, if it weren't because she knew better. Her mother had raised her. Her losses had shaped her, made her stronger, took away her innocence but never her imagination. She had always been the perfect match for the Doctor. Clara didn't believe in God, but she did believe in destiny and what the Doctor had with her she knew he wouldn't find with anyone else, and vice versa. They shared something, a piece of their souls, something that bound them together. What Missy had done had only bound them tighter. If only Clara could think of a plan to get her daughter back! She couldn't outsmart the Mistress, that was for sure. She had no TARDIS, no weapons but the basics of taekwondo and nothing to blackmail the Time Lady with.

"I can see that pretty head of yours working, Clara, but believe me, it's over for you." She grinned deviously. "You've managed to build yourself a happy little family, but _all_ good things come to an end, _sweetheart_ ," she said condescendingly. "You're gonna lose your baby girl and the luv of your life." She pouted, faking sadness. "For _eveeer_." Smiling, she added, "Give. Up."

Clara took a deep breath to stead herself before speaking.

"I'll have you know, I've never really been one for giving up. And I'm never, ever going to give up the Doctor, or Ellie." She swallowed thickly, but kept her chin up, shoulders back. "So you might as well kill me, 'cause I'll never stop searching for them if you take them away from me. I'll never stop searching for _you_. And make no mistake, _when_ I find you, I _will_ kill you."

The rage, the hate, everything was mounting inside her again, for the person who hadn't let Danny Pink rest in peace, who had killed thousands, who had hurt the Doctor countless times. Who had touched her daughter and wanted to take her away from her.

"That's my girl! I'm really proud of my little experiment with you Clara! Which brings me to the question: why would you ever think I'm gonna kill you, hmm? I can't wait to see each and every one of your pathetic attempts to get your little family back. It could easily become my favourite past time for the next three decades or so," she mused with a smile.

"Do you have any other emotions, except desire to amuse yourself to the sufferance of others?" Clara asked dryly.

"Why, yes, I'm pretty skilled at anger and wrath too, but there's no fun in that, is it?" She winked, taking out the same device Clara had seen her use at the graveyard, now almost two years in the past. "Catch me if caaa-aan," she sing-songed, disappearing with a press of a button.

"No!" Clara shouted as her daughter disappeared with the Mistress.

Clara couldn't breathe for a moment as she looked around frantically, around her, out of the window, on the street. Anywhere Missy could have reappeared. But she had to have a TARDIS, Clara told herself, she wouldn't be able to follow- a TARDIS. Clara's eyes fixed on the red public phone box across the street, right in front of her house. The phone box that had appeared overnight a couple of weeks after the Doctor had returned. The phone box that had always been out of service, from day one.

In a rush of hope, Clara bolted out of the door and ran across the street.


	12. Chapter 12

"Clara! _Clara!_ "

The Doctor rushed out of his TARDIS and into Clara's living room, shouting her name.

"Clara!" he repeated. "Clara! Where are you? _Clara!_ "

The living room was empty. The front door was open. Ellie's blanket and some of her toys were on the floor and Clara's phone lay forgotten on the sofa, but there was no sign of either of his girls. Already the Doctor could feel a sense of dread envelop him.

He quickly checked the kitchen, the bedrooms, every room and corner of the house, and found nothing. Not a clue as to where his family was nor, he realized with horror, a sign of struggle. No matter the Mistress' superior strength, Clara _would_ have put up a fight.

Something was _wrong_. Clara wouldn't have left the house that early in the morning, when he was due to come home, not without warning him at least. There was no explanation for the opened door other than a rushed departure, but Clara wouldn't have fled. Yet the house was in order, as though Clara had left on her own free will- the Doctor froze on the spot. Had Clara- had she- _followed the Master_ , willingly? The Doctor felt his breath being punched out of his lungs just as he was hit with a sudden realization and a lash of hope: the Master's TARDIS had to be near.

The door was open. Outside, then. He had no way of knowing if the time machine was even still around… but there was no mistake in his mind, as he looked down the street, that he'd found it. The red phone box, which he had paid little mind to over the weeks no matter how much it had sparked in him a sense of wrongness, was the centre of the unmistakable shifting of the continuum that accompanied the opening of the slit in the Time Vortex at the core of a TARDIS…

What a joke, what a cruel mocking of the shape his own ship was stuck in that was, he thought fleetingly as he sprinted towards the box.

In twenty long centuries, he had never run so fast.

~oOo~

Clara slammed open the door of the phone box, hoping against all odds that she had been right. Sure enough, she found herself in a control room not unlike that of the Doctor's TARDIS.

"You're a tough cookie, aren't you?" Missy asked, barely looking up from the controls. For once, there seemed to be genuine surprise and annoyance in her voice.

"You're too predictable," Clara said, feigning confidence. Her heart was beating so fast it seemed about to leap out of her chest.

"Aaah!" Ellie cried out, making Clara turn in the direction of her daughter's voice only to find her trapped in a tiny playpen that looked too much like a cage for Clara's liking.

Ellie's face was reddened and twisted with desperate crying. Clara had never heard her cry for anything other than bumping her head or being hungry or dirty or tired, and the difference was striking, heart-breaking.

"Don't cry, it's alright, Mummy's here- Ellie, don't cry," Clara tried to say, but her tension had to show in her voice and Ellie seemed inconsolable, stretching her arms out towards Clara, wanting 'up'.

The Mistress ignored the crying baby entirely.

"I'm hardly predictable if I caught you so off-guard, pet."

"Let my daughter _go_!"

Clara took a decisive step towards Ellie, but the Mistress was in between Clara and the playpen in a moment, pointing at her the device she seemed to use as both teleportation and a weapon.

"Ah, stop right there, Clara. We wouldn't want our baby seeing you blown to smithereens right in front of her, right? She's nearly six months old, isn't she? Wouldn't want this to be her very first memory, after all," the Master taunted, smiling evilly.

Clara still found enough bravery to raise her chin and straighten her shoulders. She'd done this before. She'd learned this with the Doctor: to talk away, to buy time, to distract long enough to come up with something, _anything_. Missy was different, true. She sparked in her a rage no one else had, because of everything she'd done to her, and Clara feared for Ellie as well, but she quickly convinced herself it was no different than any other villain she had faced.

"You already said you won't kill me," she said, forcing a defiant smile on her face. "Threatening me with that won't work now."

Missy laughed.

"Oh, Clara. Clara, Clara, Clara. It's always like this with his pet humans. He shows you wonders, but he never opens your eyes to the cold, harsh truth. You wouldn't be the first, y'know? Though I _do_ prefer torture to execution. I never said I _won't_ kill you, I only think it'd be more fun if I didn't. But you see, I'm _so_ changeable. Force my hand, and I might just decide I'd love to see the look on your pretty face as your _useless, meaningless human life leaves your eyes forever._ "

She smiled at her own words. Behind her, Ellie cried more loudly.

Clara was at a loss for a second, distracted by her daughter's screams.

' _Wait. She can wait,'_ she thought to herself. "I'm more useful to you alive," she said instead. That was always a good starting point.

"How so?" The Mistress frowned for a moment, then seemed to see right through Clara's attempt at distraction and dismissed her impending answer with a wave of her hand. "Have you ever thought about it? Wanted it?" she asked with a wicked glint in her eyes. "Bet you have, if you're anything like I've made you to be. If you're anything like _him_."

"Wanted what?" Clara felt compelled to ask, despite the terrifying feeling that she was losing the upper hand in this conversation.

"To kill someone, _duh_! With your own hands, mind you. _In_ your hands. Watch'em keel over."

Clara clenched her fists. It was a truth she refused to acknowledge. She refused to be a pawn in Missy's games any longer-

"Oh boy, _oooh boy_. Is it _me_? What an honour!" The Mistress smiled smugly. "I'm always happy to be the one to corrupt the Doctor's little toy-apes. And in just a few minutes too? Why, Clara, I'm flattered! This must be a record. All for a tiny bit of kidnapping and messing around with your body?"

She gave a kick at the playpen. Ellie cowered in the opposite corner with a gasp in between tears. When she started crying again, she did so more quietly.

" _Leave her alone!_ " Clara shouted.

"Oh no, this is too much fun. Didn't know you had it in you, darlin'." She kicked the playpen more forcefully. "This what makes you tick?"

" _Stop!_ "

"You're too easy, I did too good a job with you." The Mistress appeared to be nothing short of delighted. "What if I kicked _her_ instead?"

She leaned down to grab Ellie by the collar.

" _No!_ "

Clara lost it. The anger, the worry, the resentment, the _hate_ for what Missy had done and was doing, to Danny, to the Doctor, to _Ellie_ , it all concentrated in a sharp blade of _need_ to act.

Clara lunged forward and grabbed Missy's wrist, hard, digging her nails in, to hurt her, to make her suffer. The Master looked all the more pleased.

" _That_ 's more like it. Show me all of it! Hate feels good, doesn't it?" She snaked her hand around Clara's with a swift movement, forcing Clara to release her wrist, then she wrapped her fingers around Clara's forearm just as fast, trapping her wrist with a vice-like grip. "Now what?"

She smiled.

Clara winced. Her wrist hurt. She moved to kick Missy, but the Time Lady was much faster and Clara found herself with Missy's heels digging into each of her feet.

" _Now_. _What_?" the Mistress repeated, face inches from Clara's.

"I _hate_ you!" Clara shouted, tears of anger and frustration rolling down her face.

She pulled back hard to try and break free from the other woman's grasp, but it was no use. Missy leaned in even closer.

" _Good_."

Clara spit on her face.

The Master looked shocked and disgusted for a fraction of second before smiling darkly.

"I do love a fighter."

She twisted Clara's wrist hard, all the way to the left.

Clara felt the air in her lungs leave her completely. She started crying almost immediately as the bone broke with a sickening 'crack' and Missy shoved her hard, away from her, applying some extra pressure on the newly-broken bone for good measure.

Clara's good hand went to nurse and support the wrist of the other as she tried to keep her balance after being pushed with a far too generous amount of that alien strength. When she looked up again, breathing heavily and with her eyes struggling to focus, she was met with a cocky grin. Missy tossed something at her and, despite the pain in one of her wrists, Clara's uninjured hand caught the object well enough, instinctively.

"It's set on 'kill'. Why don't you try?"

Clara looked down to see the weapon-teleportation device in her own hand. Between the pain and the adrenaline and she sheer feeling fogging her mind, she could only blink at it in confusion.

"Hit right here," Missy encouraged, patting her chest. "Bet you think there's nothing, inside. Or my personal favourite," she added, tapping her index finger on the top of her head.

Clara gripped the device more surely.

"Come on, Clara. Is a little poking and prodding enough to make you press the button?"

"Don't tempt me." Clara raised the device, feeling a new determination, a cold kind of single-mindedness. "Step away from my daughter."

"What if I didn't?"

"I'll make you!"

"Show. Me."

Clara waved the device at her.

"Move!" she half-sobbed.

Missy moved closer to Ellie, who was sobbing brokenly.

"If the little fun I've had so far was enough to make you hate me so much, what will it take you to press that button? Need I touch her? Beat her?"

"You won't hurt anyone I love _again_! _I'll kill you_ before I let it happen again!"

The Mistress seemed to frown at Clara's words for a moment, but recovered quickly.

"Did I do something to upset you?" she said, pouting. "I _honestly_ don't remember." She smirked.

"You _know_ what you did! What you did to Danny, to all those others! You destroyed everything I had, _made me give up the Doctor, made me kill Danny Pink with my own hands_! You think I won't kill you? I killed the man I loved _because of you_! You don't think I hate you enough? You _made me_ kill him! He was dead, I'd buried him, I was _mourning him_ and you brought him _back_ , turned him into a Cyberman-" Clara shook her head, vision blurred with tears, "and now you _touch my family_ -"

" _Clara_!"

The doors of the TARDIS slammed open as the Doctor rushed in, shouting.

"Doctor!"

"Don't talk to her! She's-" He seemed to notice just then the device Clara was holding. He paled. "… Clara… put that down-"

" _She did this to me, Doctor_!" Clara interrupted, shouting even more angrily. "She took Ellie, she's the one who made me kill Dann-"

" _NO_! Don't say anything, she's from the past, _you're making this a fixed point_ -"

Missy started laughing maniacally.

"It's been a pleasure planning your future, ah, pardon, _past_ demise with you two…"

" _Missy, no_!" the Doctor shouted as Missy flung herself to the console and started the engines.

"… _now_ I see I have much to do!"

The floor shook as the Time Lady pulled a lever too hard, too fast.

"Clara, _get out_!"

The Doctor pushed Clara towards the still-open doors as he bolted for Ellie, the sound of the Master's TARDIS starting to dematerialize the only thing Clara seemed capable of hearing. The device she had in her hand fell to the floor as she froze on the spot, suddenly unable to move. She thought the Doctor might have said her name as he used his full weight to shove her out of the doors, Ellie in his arms holding tight onto him.

Clara remembered the sound of the three of them falling heavily on the sidewalk and the sound of dematerialization, the pain of landing on her broken wrist. Then nothing but darkness.

~oOo~

Clara sat silently on the bed as the Doctor sat next to her and slowly tended to her wrist, only one hand to the task since the other was pressed against the side of Ellie's face. Their daughter was snuggled up against him, between his thighs, nose buried in his jumper and his scent as she took gasping, shaking breaths.

Clara knew it was her fault. Her throat burned for how much she wanted to cry, but she knew she had no right. No. Right.

How could she have failed to understand Missy had not met her before, yet? The signs had all been there. Clara had just been too emotional to notice.

It was all her fault. All of it. Danny, the attack of the Cybermen, everything. All because she had lost control like an amateur, as if this was her first run-in with an enemy, or the Master, for that matter.

"Will this be her first memory?"

The Doctor did not answer. Instead, he finished wrapping gauze around her wrist, tying it off with a tiny knot before securing a sling around her neck to support the weight of her arm. The dead weight of it hurt and pulled her head downwards uncomfortably, but at the moment Clara was grateful for the pain, which dampened her emotions at least a little.

"I cannot know that," he replied eventually. "It might be, it might not."

Clara closed her eyes and concentrated on breathing steadily, in and out.

"If she remembers, will you make her forget?"

"… no. No, I won't."

His jaw was tense when he moved both hands to hold Ellie to him.

"But-"

"I don't want to discuss it now, Clara."

There was a strain in his voice that made Clara look down in shame. She wished she knew what he was thinking, but he had kept his thoughts strictly to himself since she had woken up, as well as avoiding skin-to-skin contact.

"I'm sorry," she murmured, though it meant next to nothing. The only thing she could be relieved about was that at least she had been the one to suffer most of the consequences of her stupidity and emotional outbursts.

"I know."

"Do you… do you want me to leave?" she dared to ask.

The Doctor sighed tiredly, caressing Ellie's hair.

"You think I blame you."

Clara blinked at him, stunned, but he didn't meet her eyes, instead staring into the mid-distance.

"Of course you do! It's my fault, I-"

"You think you did this out of hate."

"I did, I did, I'm sorry, Doctor, I'm so sorry, I was so mad and she kept-"

"Clara."

"I have no excuse but-"

" _Clara._ " She looked at him again and this time their eyes met. "You think you did this out of hate," he repeated. "You didn't. No one ever does. Hate is a flimsy, feeble thing. You tell yourself that's why you did it, because the truth is so much simpler and so much more _frightening_. You think you pointed a weapon at Missy out of hate. You think that's why she's like this, chases me, hurts me. You think that's why I don't want you in my head right now. But it's not." He took her hand and squeezed. "Clara."

' _It's not.'_

The force with which he pulled her into his mind was enough to startle Clara, and what she found in his thoughts surprised her even more.

' _You think I don't love you anymore. You think I'm angry. You've gone off after Missy on your own. You would have taken a life, given up your soul. You put your own life in danger. All of that, you did_ _ **out of love**_ _.'_ "You think I'd stop loving you after what you have done, Clara. But after that, _after that_ , Clara, I could never, _ever_ stop."

Clara paused to just _feel_ what the Doctor felt, so different from her concerns. The certainty he held that she had never done anything hateful, only fierce, loving. The way he saw what the Master did and had done for centuries, the attempt to force a friend who had wants and worldviews too different to allow reconciliation to come back.

"Hate is banal. It's petty and ordinary. From it can come unspeakable pain, but no outstanding gesture ever comes out of so dull a feeling. Love is what makes things great, for better or for worse."

"I think you were wrong." Clara whispered, squeezing his hand in turn. "When you said that love isn't complicated."

"Love _isn't_ complicated, Clara. What makes things complicated is what we are ready to do in its name and what we are ready to ignore and overlook when we are in love with someone."

The Doctor leaned against her then, letting her rest her head on his shoulder and his head on hers, bringing her hand to touch Ellie's. Slowly, with both her parent in her mind, the little girl gradually calmed down and eventually fell asleep. She looked serene, Clara thought, as though nothing had happened, but Clara doubted that things would ever be the same ever again, regardless of what the Doctor thought.

"It will be okay, Clara," he reassured. "We'll be okay."

Just then, Clara was content to believe him and hope his certainty would be enough for her, too. Because she trusted him. Because she _loved_ him.

And _that_ , in itself, was not complicated at all.

.

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 **A/N:** What can I say? I like bittersweet endings. I hope you don't hate them too much.

I know it's been almost a year since I updated. It was a year of depression, anxiety, chronic illness and having to drop out of university. Still, you stuck with me all this time, giving me your support, and for that I'm eternally grateful. I tried to finish this fic before S10 starts tonight and we get to know a different companion… I hope I'll get back to writing more often now, but even if I don't I'm proud of this fic and all of you make me so, so happy. You've been wonderful, thank you for sticking with me 3


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